Please pay attention to this issue - the bill is the Consumer Protection Safety Improvement Act. Congress passed it quickly last year in response to the panic over lead in toys from China, but it's a sloppily-written bill that is already hurting industries from children's clothing to thrift stores to dirt bikes. Libraries and book stores have what to worry about.
This guy has been following the issue. The Boston Globe and Wall Street Journal have written about it, too.
Congress needs to go back and clarify their intentions and straighten this out, because it's forcing retailers to throw out stock and will put a lot of companies out of business by raising the cost of production out of sight.
Getting off my soapbox, now, thanks...
I just finished reading The House at Sugar Beach by Helene Cooper. It's her memoir of growing up in Liberia in the seventies, before the civil war, and then going back as an adult. I thought it was great -- she's great at managing to get both the stuff that seems important to a kid and the stuff that was important in the government to all flow together into something coherent.
[link]
nominees for the 2009 Hugo Awards and the John W. Campbell Award
How cool would it be for Neil Gaiman to win both the Newberry and the Hugo for the same book?
he's got some stiff competition this year. But it would be very cool.
Has anyone read any Richard K Morgan? I got a rec for him lately, and it looks interesting. Any takes?
He's a Brit SF writer who's won some awards. I haven't read any of his novels, but they've generally been well-reviewed.
I may have to give the a whirl, see what I think.
Thanks, Suela
I've read him - he's fun. Not terribly deep, but good solid hard SF actiony stuff.
[eta that I wasn't a huge fan of Thirteen, even as I appreciated the worldbuilding. But the Takeshi Kovacs novels and his two Black Widow graphic novels I like quite a bit.]
Courtesy of 'Suela, this is epic. Someone wrote a "tribute" sequel to
Breaking Dawn
(about Jacob) AND IS SELLING IT ON EBAY. And she sees nothing wrong with that. Nor does her publisher. It's astounding.