So far, I'm having a bad, bad day. Rather than drag you along for the ride, here are a few things to check out in what are surely more pleasant environs.

• A bunch of people have already linked to this opinion piece by Tom McCarthy called "Publishing? It's an art form." In it, he gives a well-written and succinct "neener neener" to successful writers, mainstream publishers, and big box booksellers. Being a serious artist among philistines is arduous, but at least his smugness survived.

  Also, The Elegant Variation reports that Soft Skull will publish McCarthy's non-fiction book Tintin and the Secret of Literature in the United States. As a child, I missed out on most children's books because money went for essentials and our public library was limited. I had never heard of Tintin until a trip to France during high school, so the cartoons aren't bookmarked in the nostalgic pages of my youth. According to McCarthy, though, Tintin's creator deserves a place among literary giants Dickens, Flaubert, Faulkner, and Pynchon.

• I love this see-saw bookshelf. Too bad I don't have enough space in my living room or an extra $1900 in mad money.
• While at Barnes & Noble recently, I loitered in the magazine section to read Steven King's "The Gingerbread Girl" in this month's Esquire. It didn't grab my interest within the first two pages, so I put the magazine back. Adventures in Reading, however, "was entertained the entire way through." Also at this blog is a brief review of King's The Dark Half, a book I read long, long ago but only remember from the awful movie version starring Timothy Hutton.
• Several months back, my dad did a stint in the hospital for gall bladder surgery. He has always loved Shakespeare, so it didn't surprise me to see The Tragedy of King Lear in his room during a visit. However, I was shocked when I discovered it was a SparkNotes No Fear Shakespeare edition which features the original text on the right with plain English on the left. I understand side-by-side translations of foreign language titles, but, come on. English to English?

  Despite my dad's already good understanding of Shakespeare's writings, he said the simplified text helped him see certain subtleties lost among metaphor and ornate language. I bought his defense, but it didn't stop me from laughing while browsing through the book. For example, this line appears in Lear's first scene of Act II:

  Shakespeare - Edmund: Look, sir, I bleed.

  Translation - Edmund: Father, I am bleeding.

  Duh.

  I am reminded of when an ex-boyfriend took me to see Kenneth Branagh's Henry V. It was early on in our ten-year dalliance, so he was surely trying to impress me since he had little interest in Shakespeare. As we left the theater, I talked about being thrilled by the adaptation, especially the handling of the Saint Crispin's Day speech. The ex's thoughts: "Was the movie in English? I didn't understand anything they said. It needed subtitles." We still talk from time to time, so perhaps I'll bring up our date and suggest he might enjoy Manga Shakespeare (via The Valve).