Books are dangerous

that author Terry Pratchett has an official coat of arms?
The motto means “Do Not Fear the Reaper.”

The forces of the Union are about to meet those of the North in battle. Over the next three days war will be waged, and men will die. Or become heroes. Or something in between. This is the story of those bloody days, the story of the men, and occasional women, on both sides who fight.

Every night Conor O’Malley has the nightmare. Every night. But tonight something is different. Tonight there is a new monster. A new nightmare. And Conor isn’t sure if this is a dream or not. But either way, this is the monster he was fearing. This monster, the yew tree, tells him that it will tell him three stories. And then Conor will tell the monster a story. A true story. And if he doesn’t, then the monster will eat him alive.

Today's Guardian Review is a science fiction special The stars of modern SF pick the best science fiction

Flavourwire post Ten Devastatingly Sad Books the full list is:

or so says The Centered Librarian
Death of the author: As hair-rippingly awful as Twilight may be, this literary phenomenon has absolutely nothing to do with clunking Stephenie Meyer’s head onto a pike for her egregious crimes against books (which would be absurd and rather mean). Rather, it stems from Roland Barthes’ argument that an author’s ideologies and life story have little to no bearing on a textual interpretation.

Maria Tatar is the John L. Loeb Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures and Folklore and Mythology at Harvard University. She chairs the Program in Folklore and Mythology. She also has a blog full of fairy tale related stuff. And lots of other interesting stuff too.

Do you like infographics? And ever wanted to plot exactly where Gandalf was at such a moment in the Lor dof the Rings trilogy, well, now you can combine these needs, with Narrative charts and a chart of The Fellowship
(yes, more film related than book, but still quite cool)
Via

It is hard to blurb this book. On the one hand it is about Vesuvius and volcanic explosions and disasters both natural and man-made. But it is also a book about the origins of the earth, of the universe, and about how precarious our existence is. How so much of what we are today is dependent on natural events a thousand years ago, or a millennia ago, or so long ago that it is almost pointless to count the time because it is so difficult to grasp those sort of numbers.

If you follow Neil Gaiman on twitter then you'll have heard all about the politician who is criticising him for being paid for an appearance he made in Minnesota. According to Matt Dean Gaiman "stole" $45,000 from the taxpayers.