Slogans, Book Nerd Awesomeness, and the Study of Insects

Funniest thing I've seen all day: in a review of a book titled "100 Words Almost Everyone Confuses and Misuses",

"It is essentially just a small dictionary and beyond definitions doesn't go into detail on entomology." 

Apparently there needs to be a sequel. :)

Thanks to Arabella for the following link: Buzzfeed's "The 30 best places to be if you love books." Number 27... is matchless. This is supposedly someone's living room:

Books, a laptop, and a grand piano.
The latter is sort of overkill when you'd be using it to play
themes from The Man from Snowy River, but STILL.

The glory! I love it so much that I can't make coherent sentences to express said love, though the room could admittedly use a couch and a few houseplants. If it were mine, I'd also add some lamps and religious statuary and straighten the carpet on stage right, and Lou would want his laptop along, and Maia would make sure several socks got into the final version. The superlative greatness stands, however.

The other photos are lovely, too, and number 24 reminds me of the character in Fullmetal Alchemist—Sheska, if I recall rightly—who said "It's lonely when you can't find the book you want to read."

Also fantastic: Literary cakes. I love the "highly literary wedding cake", the one for The Night Circus, and the mini library. And the Harry Potter one, and the Jane Austen ones, and the Poe one... oh, all right, they're pretty much all wonderful.

Writers' link of the week: The Real Fauxtographer's post on the Nike slogan. From the piece:

I didn't want to take his advice. I was scared. I didn't want to start taking anything without a plan in mind and just be continually disappointed in the results. But like he said, I just did it. My original batch of photos were awful, and I almost stopped right then and there but then, like the boyfriend predicted, the ideas started flowing and finally got a shot I was excited to edit.

I'm not sure how I feel about "Just Do It", honestly. My 2010 NaNoWriMo was an attempt at just doing a specific "it"—namely, writing the sequel to my 2009 NaNo—and it was disastrous. But I do think that stopping outright is usually a dangerous response to creative block. Just do—something. Step back and go over your original vision. Brainstorm directions for the project that are totally different from what you had planned. Work on a different project. Study works that inspire you. Take a day off to go for a walk and let your thoughts wander. Whatever it takes to loosen up the mind.

Of course, as slogans go, "Just Do Something" is inexpressibly ridiculous. But whatever.

Those of you who read young adult fiction, I highly recommend checking out all of The Real Fauxtographer's ongoing YA novel photo series. Her image of Across the Universe is creepily perfect, and I think the donut-shop scene from Anna and the French Kiss—which I've not read, but I'm about to remedy that—is flat-out adorable.