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Links + Things: Justin Timberlake! The Calming Manatee! Plagiarism (Ugh)! Sexism (Double Ugh)! Libraries! General Interestingness!

You guys, it's been slow around these parts because I kind of lost the plot with my reading and nearly every book I've read in March isn't out until May or June. Obviously, I would be a jerk if I started reviewing things that weren't out for months--on a number of levels. 

However! I have many links of interestingness, including a Very Special Section devoted to the one and only Justin Timberlake. I have had The 20/20 Experience on repeat since Tuesday and I am in love--especially with Pusher Love Girl, which is Swoon City, USA.  ​

This Week's Video of Awesome

This is a ​fantastic speculative ad for Durex--it's brilliant and actually tells you want you need to know about the product.

Interestingness

Jane Goodall, the primatologist celebrated for her meticulous studies of chimps in the wild, is releasing a book next month on the plant world that contains at least a dozen passages borrowed without attribution, or footnotes, from a variety of Web sites.

The borrowings in “Seeds of Hope: Wisdom and Wonder From the World of Plants” range from phrases to an entire paragraph from Web sites such as Wikipedia and others that focus on astrology, tobacco, beer, nature and organic tea.

​Well, this is disappointing news to say the least. I'm getting so weary of one plagiarism story after another. I realize there are so many pressures to publish, publish, publish, but it's at the point I'm no longer all that surprised by each week's plagiarism story. What worries me the most is the desensitizing--I have had a number of students in their 20s who have been surprised by my anti-plagiarism spiel because it's the first time they've had someone explicitly address the issue of plagiarism and what it precisely means. 

Links + Things: Critiquing "Oz," Network TV's Vision Problem, How the Quiet Car Explains the World, Feminist/UnFeminist, Strong Female Characters + More

How is it Thursday already? This has been quite a week, particularly since--at long last--we launched the Clear Eyes, Full Shelves podcast. Give it a listen--we hope you enjoy the blend of discussion, humor and hijinks. 

This has been a bit of a slow week, bookish news-wise, but there's ​still loads of interestingness in the world. Check out a few of the tidbits I've gathered and don't forget to scroll to the end for book cover news and cheap book deals to feed your reading habit.

This Week's Video of Awesome

​You Tube user dair to love created this fan-freaking-fastic tribute to Friday Night Lights. It got kind of dusty in here when I watched this the first time. Ahem.

Interestingness

No doubt the focus group responsible for “Great and Powerful” convinced themselves that female protagonists weren’t marketable (odd coming from the studio of Disney Princesses), and that a pouty, doubting hero would draw in a wider range of moviegoers. It was probably believed no one would ever see an Oz film unless it directly tied into the version they already knew and loved, and that trying to draw on original Oz tales would be too confusing and difficult. Audiences can follow along with Marvel and Tolkien, but the origin of Ozma would undoubtedly be too complicated. Why bring in Betsy and her mule, when we can have a Hollywood hunk on the poster, and witchy cleavage at the denouement?

​Over at film.com, Elizabeth Rappe dissects Hollywood's prequel to The Wizard of Oz, Oz the Great and Powerful. She points out that in the Oz novels, L. Frank Baum created stories with strong women as the leads, but Hollywood's interpretation reflects none of that.The new film falls back into the gender stereotypes present in nearly every blockbuster flick. It's been a long, long time since I read a number of the original Oz novels, and I'm interested in revisiting them now .

Links + Things: Goats Sing Your Favorite Pop Songs; A Closer Look at That First Book Infographic; Facebook's Sexism; Cheapo Books; and More

It bothers me that I even have to say this, but I must remind everyone that I link to things here because I find them interesting, thought-provoking or bring a perspective I hadn't thought of previously. Diverse viewpoints are important in this world of online media and social networking where issues are generally treated in a black and white, right or wrong manner.

Just because I link to something doesn't mean that I've "endorsed" (ha, funny word) the opinion.

Except the funny videos, of course--those I wholeheartedly endorse.

Links

First, a bit of funny-slash-crazy to start. All week, my husband has been sending me links to videos of pop songs reinterpreted with, um... goats. Yes, GOATS!!! ​Screaming goats! My two favorites are below. The first is for Bon Jovi's Livin' on a Prayer, the second Taylor Swift's I Knew You Were Trouble. I dare you to not die laughing.

Links + Things: Blogging Ethics; SI's Sexism and Racism; Indie Booksellers Sue Amazon/Publishers; and Taking Down "The Following"

Lots of interesting news this week, including a bit of a scandal in the blogging world, discussion of the WTFery of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue and lots of publishing news.

Scroll down to the bottom of this post for a roundup of cheap ebooks discounted as part of Amazon's Kindle Big Deal--there are a lot of good ones this time.

​Links

You could argue that affiliate links aren’t technically ads, but that misses the point. If you slap a banner ad on the top of your website, at least readers know it’s an advertisement and they can take it with a great big grain of salt. But when they read a glowing review from someone they trust, then click through to place an order for that book–without knowing said reviewer is getting a kickback–isn’t that worse?

I'm sure I'm not alone in my fascination ​with the Brainpickings "scandal" that was all over the nerdy corner of the internet this week. It seems that the popular site's claims of being ad-free are definitely a case of parsing, as affiliate links are likely a considerable source of income for the blog, which solicits donations under the auspices of remaining "ad free." 

My take? What this issue comes down to is the importance of transparency and erring on the side of caution in ensuring that you're not misrepresenting yourself to readers.​ This hasn't been touched on, but one of the things that bothers me most about the "ad free" language is that it's backed up by a .org URL, which insinuates a not-for-profit status. (I also question the costs and hours the blog author cites, because both seem out of whack estimates.)

I don't begrudge anyone for using affiliate links and monetizing their sites--clicks on Amazon links pay the hosting bills around here (thank you!)--but I really don't understand why it's still common practice in the day of FTC rules ​for blogs to be sketchy in this way (this reminds me of the controversy about sponsored content on The Atlantic Blog).

Disclose, disclose, disclose. It's really that simple.

Links + Things: Viola Davis on 'Beautiful Creatures,' Sex and YA, Perfectionism, Connie Britton + More

Links

I’m going to be confident and bold and say I like it because, listen, I understand and I respect the book and I think the book is wonderful but this is 2013 and I think that when black people are woven into the lives of characters in 2013, then I think they play other roles than maids. I think that that needs to be explored and I hope that the audience is willing to suspend their disbelief and embrace what Richard LaGravenese has given them.

I enjoyed the first two Beautiful Creatures books (I put the series on hold until the last book came out and just haven't gotten caught up yet), but one of the big things that made them 3-star reads for me as opposed to 4-stars was the stereotypical role the authors chose to place Alma, who's an important character to the story. I love that the move creators recognized that this character has so much more potential than the book gave her and this news makes me more excited to see the movie adaptation. 

Links + Things: Algonquin's Young Reader Imprint, The Fringe Book and a Year of Verse Novels

This week, I have a bunch of interesting news, ranging from an intriguing new young adult and middle grade imprint and a free download of one of my favorite light-hearted romance novels.

Links

Algonquin Launches YA/YR Imprint (Facebook)
Algonquin Young Readers, launching Fall 2013, is a new imprint of Algonquin Books dedicated to publishing works of the same literary merit and enduring qualities that are hallmarks of the Algonquin tradition.

Algonquin Books has released some interesting and well-performing fiction in the last few years (including the Water for Elephants), and this week they announced that they're launching an imprint focused on middle grade and young adult titles, Algonquin Young Readers. This is pretty intriguing, and it sounds like they're taking a literary approach to their acquisitions (they're posted on their Facebook page, linked above). 

The one that piques my interest the most is Sara Farizan's If You Could Be Mine, which is about a lesbian teen in Iran, where being gay is punishable by death. (There's a preview up on Scribd.)

I'm excited to see where they go with this imprint, since I do think there's a market for more literary-minded books for young people.