Stuff to read

There's always one great excuse for being lazy to write - there are too many interesting things to read. Random pickings from this week...

Saying Yes to Mess (via) - either Get Organized in January or simply say yes to mess.

A lot of Regency stuff to read at the Jane Austen's World (via).

Ruth Rendell's take on aging is very interesting reading (via).

The Modern Word, an extremely absorbing and addictive spot.

The Town By The Sea, Amitav Ghosh's essay on the Tsunami of 2004 (via) - sometimes empathy, sympathy are insufficient responses to the magnitude of tragedy. Stunned acquiescence is all one can manage.

Digging around for new servings of the same classics can lead to comparing merits of each site. Among other needless, pointless exercises, this too survives and hogs a lot of time. ReadPrint has good offerings but you need to read them online. DailyLit will email bite-sized portions of the classics at regular frequency (I have 68 emails of War & Peace sitting unread. sigh). ManyBooks offers versions for the mobile gadgets (PDA, iPod and what have you) and feeds off Project Gutenberg. ClassicShorts for the short stories, OneSentence for those with ADD. Then there's Suggestica for stuff on various subjects, they sell them. Then there's all the other sites one hasn't gotten around to mentioning. Now, what was that about vanishing time?

Everyone's been talking about the Pamuk Nobel lecture in the past couple of weeks. Please, please, please read it if you haven't yet.

James Wood's The Celestial Teapot (requires registration, free) is another brilliant read. Well worth sinking into your bean bag for (via).

For many hours of laughter and much appreciation from cousins, the Effingpot is unbeatable.

...and lazy became lazier.