Tim Challies writes that Stephen Lawhead has a new novel coming out in September, Hood, the story of a Welsh Robin Hood. No fair, why can’t I get a review copy of a Stephen Lawhead book!

Kate on Criteria for Culling the Collection. I have trouble with this task as I think most bibliophiles do. My house is full of books. I can’t shelve all of my books. But I have another reason for keeping certain books that Kate doesn’t mention: I think, “Yes, I’ve already read it, but my children will want to read this book someday. All eight of them. Or my grandchildren will read it.” I don’t have any grandchildren yet. So I keep the books, lots of books.

A Small Death in Lisbon not only sounds like a good book to add to the LIST, but this marketing by chance and word of mouth story is a good story. Authors and publishers take note. Handselling and interpersonal publicity does work sometimes, but you can’t really control it. Only encourage it.

Martin O’Malley on reading slowly.

“I feel no guilt whatsoever about being a slow reader, or about not having read all the great books, or about abandoning a book halfway through because I’m bored. There are two things in life one must never do out of a sense of duty, and one is read.”

Here’s another link to the list of the best 100 Penguin classics from The London Times. It’s divided into categories, five books in each category. I will be dissecting and commenting soon; in the meantime, what do you think of the list?