From Flavorwire:

Not to get too philosophical, but it’s hard to define what is truly funny. Is it something that has you falling on the floor laughing or something that has you chuckling inside while also pondering the absurdity of the human condition? What each of us defines as funny depends on the individual subject: some of us might think there’s something funny about The Stranger by Camus, while others prefer Adam Sandler making fart sounds. The point is that humor works as a device that can make you laugh with reckless abandon, but also ponder this strange situation we call life. Not everything that’s funny has to start off with “Knock knock,” and these 25 books offer an opportunity to see how writers have used humor in different ways, to often-brilliant results.

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A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole

Remember your college significant other that kept telling you that you had to read this book? You know the one I’m talking about: the one with bad taste disguised as pseudo intellectualism. Yeah, that one. A Confederacy of Dunces was really all they got right (except for you, of course) in terms of things they suggested you check out, because the story of Ignatius J. Reilly, our modern Don Quixote, is one of the funniest and finest American books of the the 20th century.

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The Stench of Honolulu, Jack Handey

One of the great comedy minds of the last few decades took a long time to get around to writing a novel, but when he finally did it last year, it got us thinking that we could be in the middle of a comedic literature boom.

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Don’t Get Too Comfortable, David Rakoff

We’re still reeling from David Rakoff’s death just a little under two years ago. That great sardonic wit who could put American culture under a microscope (and sometimes that of his native Canada as well), making every ugly little spot hilarious, Rakoff’s place among the greats should be confirmed. We’re pretty sure Don’t Get Too Comfortable is his finest work, but reading all of his books to find out is also a fine idea.

Link to the rest at Flavorwire

Absolutely nothing to do with books (except maybe as a weird writing prompt), but interesting, at least to PG.

From CBS Las Vegas:

Popular dating site Match.com will use photos of users’ exes to determine which type of look they’re attracted to in order to find them a dating match.

. . . .

Members of Match.com will be able to upgrade to Three Day Rule’s premium service which will ask users to send pictures of exes to determine the type of look they’re attracted to. Three Day Rule will then use facial-recognition technology in an effort to help users find dates.

“People have a type and it’s not necessarily about height or race or hair color, but a lot of it is about face shape.”

Link to the rest at CBS Las Vegas

From the Oxford English Dictionary Word of the Day:

greenswardsmanship, n.

. . . .

The cultivation of an unusually and enviably excellent lawn.

1936 W. C. Sellar & R. J. Yeatman Garden Rubbish 64 The object of Greenswardsmanship is to acquire a Lawn..so verdant that everyone goes green with envy at the sight of it.

Link to the rest at Oxford English Dictionary

From TPV regular JW Manus:

As I write this I have around a two million words worth of back list books sitting on my desk, awaiting conversion from print into ebooks. In the past week alone I have scanned, converted and restored over 400K words to the stage where I can send the doc files to the writer for proofreading.

Tedious. Yes. Daunting, perhaps. Expensive, sometimes. Impossible and difficult, no way. Writers with back list, please, if you have gotten the rights back to your work, don’t let either expense or the thought of so much work stop you from bringing your back list back to life and reissuing it as either ebooks or print-on-demand or both.

. . . .

 A word of caution: There are some services that promise to scan, convert and turn your print book into an ebook, all for one very low price. This is the process used by many of the big publishing houses and this is why so many of their (your!) ebooks are broken, ugly, and riddled with formatting errors and typos. Research those services extensively. If there is any hint that they convert pdf files into ebooks, walk away. Run away!

. . . .

This is the process for the RIGHT way:

1. Scan the book into a pdf file
2. Convert the pdf using OCR into a document file
3. Gross restoration: remove headers, footers, page numbers, and bugshit produced when conversion “reads” speckles, debris, foxing, watermarks or penciled notations as characters; restore paragraphs; restore special formatting such as italics or bolded text; remove all formatting artifacts embedded by the pdf AND the word processor.
4. Fine tune and proofread.
5. Format the fully restored text for either digital or print-on-demand.
6. Proofread the ebook and/or print-on-demand.

Skip any of the above steps and you’ll end up with a substandard product that is disrespectful to your written work AND to your readers.

Link to the rest at JW Manus

From The American Reader:

Much of the exasperation my teacher-friends express confuses me. “How can an essay have so many spelling errors in the spellcheck era?” grumbles one. “If I see one more its/it’s mistake I’m going to scream” tweets another. I sense real ire from these people, or at least intense distaste. The typos and misused words offend them. And this phenomenon isn’t relegated to teachers; I often find this sort of disdain on message boards, comment sections, or any part of the internet where language goes unchecked and unedited.

I don’t understand these reactions at all. First, what is the source of this irritation? Do these typos or errors make it more difficult to read, understand, or evaluate writing, either professionally or personally? I always know if “there” is supposed to be a possessive or a contraction—it never tricks me! Then again I’m a pretty good reader; I can look at words and suddenly I’ve read them, without saying them or anything. But I also assume that these grammar sticklers are good readers too.

. . . .

More importantly, though: do most people not appreciate the beauty of the word-error? It lets us take a tiny break from the onslaught of discourse and appreciate the form of language! Each mistake is a tiny narrative: what caused the mistake: greasy fingers, too-loud Ke$ha, a phonetic misunderstanding? These errors bring the body, with all its flaws, back to language.

. . . .

The typo

This is the simplest textual mistake you can make. It presumably reveals no misunderstanding or ignorance on the part of the author. A simple slip of the finger creates an error in the text, but rarely clouds intelligibility whatsoever. But what flavor they can add to even the most mundane chats or texts! I long for the days before standardized spelling. “Teh” is a favorite of mine because it elicits such a strange, stupefying sound; it is the onomatopoeia for the typo. “Htat” and “htis” are also pleasant on the eye and ear, and doublle (or especially triple) lettters force the gaze to linger and appreciate the construction of words. Simple typos like this rarely bring moments of sublimity, but they do act as charming stumbling blocks that remind you that you are reading human words.

Link to the rest at The American Reader

From The New York Times:

A novelist scrawling away in a notebook in seclusion may not seem to have much in common with an NBA player doing a reverse layup on a basketball court before a screaming crowd. But if you could peer inside their heads, you might see some striking similarities in how their brains were churning.

That’s one of the implications of new research on the neuroscience of creative writing. For the first time, neuroscientists have used fMRI scanners to track the brain activity of both experienced and novice writers as they sat down — or, in this case, lay down — to turn out a piece of fiction.

. . . .

 The inner workings of the professionally trained writers in the bunch, the scientists argue, showed some similarities to people who are skilled at other complex actions, like music or sports.

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During brainstorming, the novice writers activated their visual centers. By contrast, the brains of expert writers showed more activity in regions involved in speech.

“I think both groups are using different strategies,” Dr. Lotze said. It’s possible that the novices are watching their stories like a film inside their heads, while the writers are narrating it with an inner voice.

When the two groups started to write, another set of differences emerged. Deep inside the brains of expert writers, a region called the caudate nucleus became active. In the novices, the caudate nucleus was quiet.

The caudate nucleus is a familiar part of the brain for scientists like Dr. Lotze who study expertise. It plays an essential role in the skill that comes with practice, including activities like board games.

When we first start learning a skill — be it playing a piano or playing basketball — we use a lot of conscious effort. With practice, those actions become more automatic. The caudate nucleus and nearby regions start to coordinate the brain’s activity as this shift happens.

Link to the rest at The New York Times and thanks to Lily for the tip.

From Entertainment Weekly:

Last year, Stephen King published a mystery novel called Joyland. Soon after, ebook sales for a book by Emily Schultz spiked.

This mystery’s solution is a simple one: Schultz published a novel, also called Joyland, back in 2006. King released his book as paperback-only when it was first released, to honor the pulp fiction that inspired his novel. Many unsuspecting customers on Amazon accidentally bought the ebook version of Schultz’s book instead of King’s.

. . . .

It turns out, King doesn’t mind at all.

“I’m delighted for her, and I’m going to order her book,” King told EW.

Link to the rest at Entertainment Weekly and thanks to Ree for the tip.

From Slate:

In an eight-page document, Jane Austen collected her friends’ and family’s opinions of her third and fourth novels, Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1815). The British Library recently made the manuscript available online as part of its great Discovering Literature: Romantics and Victorians Collection.

Below, I’ve transcribed Austen’s collection of feedback on Mansfield Park.

. . . .

Opinions of Mansfield Park. –

“We certainly do not think it as a whole equal to P.& P. – but it has many & great beauties. Fanny is a delightful Character! And Aunt Norris is a great favourite of mine. The Characters are natural & well supported, & many of the Dialogues excellent. You need not fear the publication being considered as discreditable to the talents of its author.” – T.W.A.

. . . .

Fanny Knight. – Liked it; in many parts, very much indeed; delighted with Fanny; – but not satisfied with the end – wanting more Love between her & Edmund – & could not think it natural that Edmd shd be so much attached to a woman without Principle like Mary C. – or promote Fanny’s marrying Henry.

Anna liked it better than P.&P. – but not so well as S.&S. – could not bear Fanny. Delighted with Mrs. Norris, the scene at Portsmouth, & all the humorous parts.

Link to the rest at Slate and thanks to Matthew for the tip.

From Chris Meadows at TeleRead:

Remember when Stephen King expressly declined to put out an e-book edition of his new novel Joyland, out of nostalgia for the experience of reading paperbacks when he was a kid? He preferred instead that readers should have to “stir their sticks” to go and get a real print book. It turns out to have had the most amusing side-effect.

You see, eight years ago, an author named Emily Schultz wroteanother novel called Joyland. And shortly after King’s book of that title came out, Schultz suddenly started getting angry and confused Amazon reviews from people who bought her e-book thinking it was the Stephen King book, only to be upset and disappointed when they discovered it was not.

. . . .

Schultz was annoyed at first at the possibility of these erroneous reviews hurting her book’s buzz…but that changed once she got her first significantly larger-than-usual royalty check for the mistaken purchases.

Link to the rest at TeleRead

From The Bookseller:

Author A L Kennedy has warned that Britain has suffered from “a generation of dedicated book suppression”, with access to books diminishing on all sides thanks to library cuts, school policies and the loss of the net book agreement.

. . . .

[She said] that Britain wasn’t only losing books because of library cutbacks and closures.”A perfect storm of combined pressures mean we’re losing books on all sides,” she said. “Our access to books isn’t just diminishing through the library closures or a culled GCSE reading list. In 1997 the UK lost its net book agreement – which was said to be against the public interest because it fixed prices. Since then, heavy discounts and a recession, mean publishers avoid risks… we hear less often from unusual or marginal voices.

“Less than 3% of books are translations from other languages, other countries. Our range of bookshops and their stock has diminished. If we have computers we’ll mainly be offered multiple clones of successful books – and food porn, design porn, 50 shades of soft porn.”

Link to the rest at The Bookseller