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I love these humorous video takes on banned books.

This one by Girls In the Stacks is so funny! I really enjoyed it.

And this video with puppets misunderstanding the meaning of Banned Book Week is fun! (smiling)

Thanks to the wonderful Paul W. Hankins for the links to these great videos.

Know a great video about books or banned/challenged books? Let me know, and if it works for me, too, I’ll share it.

And don’t forget to enter my contest to win 1 of 3 signed copies of Scars (1st edition, hardcover) for Banned Book Week.

Kidlit author and illustrator Debbie Ridpath Ohi’s writer and booklover comics often tickle my funnybone, but this one particularly did! I hope you enjoy it. If you’ve never read Debbie’s comics before, you’re in for a treat!

"Books or Me"--comic by Debbie Ridpath Ohi

Used with permission from Debbie Ridpath Ohi at Inkygirl.com.

Did you know that there are a number of songs inspired by books? Yep, there are! How cool is that? Josh over at Brews and Books has posted about a few songs that refer to books–modern and classics–as well as plays. Some of the books I didn’t know and wouldn’t have recognized, but others I did. (Now give me children’s and YA books, and I could do a lot better. Speaking of which, the title of “Green Eggs & Hamlet” seems to me to refer to the Dr Seuss book as well as Shakespere’s play Hamlet. What do you think?)

Since I read Josh’s list and saw his mention of Batman, I can think of another comic-related song right away (what can I say–I also love comics!):

Superman (It’s Not Easy) by Five For Fighting
“I can’t stand to fly
I’m not that naive
I’m just out to find
The better part of me

I’m more than a bird…I’m more than a plane
More than some pretty face beside a train
It’s not easy to be me”

The whole song is clearly about Superman. I found myself grinning delightedly the first time I heard it. There are also quite a number of other Superman songs, according to Wikipedia.

Do you know a song that’s inspired by a book or play? If you do, head on over and leave a comment.

And hey, if you know of songs inspired by or that include references to children’s or YA books, let me know! I love the idea.

I wonder if anyone’s created a Harry Potter song, or a Twilight inspired song? I bet they have!

Here’s a funny, enjoyable video about the way one writer imagined the publication process would go, from writing to getting an agent to getting a publisher–all a breeze, an easy dance. I do like the dancing. And the way the agent and editor tear through the pages is hilarious.

Thanks to Pub Rants for the link.

I love comics that are about writing, reading, or all of those things. So it was lovely to stumble across Debbie Ridpath Ohi’s comic strip Will Write For Chocolate. Her strips are entertaining and funny, and have something for book lovers and something for readers. And, you can subscribe to her comic blog, so you automatically get each new comic as she posts it. How great is that?

“Reading Addict,” Will Write For Chocolate, by Debbie Ridpath Ohia.

For book lovers, check out Alike In All Ways? and Eva’s Book Purge part 2. Don’t you just identify with them? I do.

For writers, check out Sven’s review, Email Submissions, and The Critique.

And then check out the archives; Debbie has archives up all the way back to Dec 2005. (Click on the small comic to make it larger.)

Enjoy!

This just tickled my funny bone–the Bookseller has a prize for the Oddest Book Title of the Year* (now in its 30th year)–and some of the past winners are: Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice (1978); How to Shit in the Woods: An Environmentally Sound Approach to a Lost Art (1989); How to Avoid Huge Ships (1992); Highlights in the History of Concrete ( 1994); and Bombproof Your Horse (2004).

Those titles made me grin. You can see all the past titles here. The titles are spotted and submitted by publishers, booksellers, and librarians around the world.
Want some more fun? You can actually join in and vote for the oddest title from the past 30 years. The winner will be announced on Friday, 5th September, 2008.

To celebrate, Aurum Press will release an illustrated collection of some of the winners and nominees of past years, How to Avoid Huge Ships and Other Implausibly Titled Books. It features original jackets of 50 of the best-loved titles since the prize began.

*The formal prize from Bookseller is called Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year.

Thanks to Shelf Awareness for the link.

If you need a laugh, head on over to Library Voice, where today’s post is about an angry parent upset over all the children’s books featuring mice. The mother is irate because she says that mice are disease carriers. She may have a point–but does she not trust that children know what fantasy is? Or that she can’t have a discussion with her child, if she’s really so concerned? The books that she got upset about are great books. It’s incredible what people will get riled up about.

Of course, this seems to segue into censorship, which isn’t really a laughing matter–but sometimes you just have to laugh.

If you like book humor, or reading about interesting facts about books, head over to Librarian Mom’s blog for some Librarian knock-knock jokes that she just wrote. I didn’t find the jokes exactly funny, but I really enjoyed reading them; the answers, and then the brief paragraphs beneath them, gave me info about peculiarities in where books are shelved in libraries that I found both interesting and very easy to read in this format.

Okay, I was trying to be all organized and ahead of the game before tax season but then we moved and my new office has a completely different set-up than the old office and I can't believe we've been 8 months and haven't set up a system for certain things. Like, gulp, receipts. (It's a sad story that I won't go into here.)

I will admit that I am a disorganized crazy person when it comes to setting up a new system. I am not dedicated to recording something in Excel as soon as I get home from buying it. This, of course, means that I have mad dashes before deadlines for things like paying income taxes. It also means the occasional sad story based on my own stupidity. (Like checks that I have to have re-issued because they have, gulp, expired.)

Since it is not next year yet I figure I have time to implement SOMETHING that will work for next year.

So what's your system? I mean exactly. In detail enough for a crazy person like me to follow. Do you hit the office supply store and carefully note on your receipt what you bought and the go home and go right to your office and enter it in Quicken or a spreadsheet? Does the scrap of paper ride along with you in your car for months until its time to have the car detailed and you save it (just barely) from being tossed with all the empty water bottles that have rolled under the seat? Is there a basket on your desk where everything lives untl the last Sunday of the month (unless there's a full moon) and then you suffer through hours of matching things up and filing them in folders and then ???

I know the basics of organization - everything needs a home. For some reason there are a few things, the most important things, in our new place that still don't have a home. I don't know why. It probably says something horrible about my psyche but oh well. I am what I am. And that's what scares me. The thought that I am not going to be able to change myself into even a fake organized person.

Are you fed up with the piles of paperwork involved in every single thing these days? What frustrates me the most is when I receive requests to fill it in again! In my experience Centre link is a classic example of this. Although I receive very little assistance financially I have to go to great lengths to report my earnings to them. Their forms are a nightmare often requiring you to guess your