Footnotes, August 2021: Book links from around the web

At The Reading List, we’re trainspotters when it comes to interesting book links, and here are a number that caught our eye.

Here’s a conundrum for you. Book piracy (illegally downloading books) is wrong, but book pirates buy more books.

Can you have too many books in your to-be-read pile? Find out more about your ‘antilibrary’, the books you haven’t read, a reminder of how much you have left to learn.

In praise of judging books by their covers.

At 65, Carole-Ann Warburton handed in her notice and opened her dream bookshop – and she had 8,000 of her own books ready to fill it.

Have you been wondering if those Cormac McCarthy tweets are real? Well, Twitter admits it verified a fake account.

Facebook’s role in the genocide in Myanmar are revealed in the new book An Ugly Truth.

There is only one known recording of JD Salinger’s voice, and it will be cremated with the woman who stole it.

Reading time increased by 21% in the second half of 2020 (in the US, at least).

Could QAnon commit acts of the magnitude of 9/11?

Charlotte Brontë is thought to have burnt the manuscript of her sister Emily’s second novel. But what was it about?

How an 18th-century cookbook saved a modern European language.

Science fiction provides military planners with technology ideas, but they turn a blind eye to the ways the genre explores how these technologies affect humans and society.

An overdue library book in Sheffield, UK, has been returned after 300 years. They’ve not yet decided on the fine.

Remember ‘Cat Person’? The short story about an excruciating sexual encounter that went viral? Imagine finding out it was based on your life …

95-year-old comic legend Mel Brooks has written his memoir. (‘He felt it was the right time to do it – mid career.’)

Do you miss Schitt’s Creek? Pine no more. Daniel Levy – who plays David Rose – is releasing an official Schitt’s Creek book entitled Best Wishes, Warmest Regards.