A number of sites have round ups of “creative” bookshelves, which win points for novelty, but fail miserably when it comes to practicality.

While the Mario shelves above win points for geekiness, I can only hope they’re used for storing toys and not books. All that block breaking can’t be good for them.

For more examples see the following:

• Buzzfeed, “20 Insanely Creative Bookshelves“
• freshhome, “30 of the Most Creative Bookshelves Designs”⁽¹⁾
• Oddee, “14 Coolest Bookshelves“
• Designs Delight, “22 Creative Wood Bookshelves and Custom Bookcases“
• DeMilked, “25 Creative and Modern Bookshelves“

The vast majority of these bookshelves are wildly impractical, or, at best, can only be of use to people who possess but a handful of books. Many look like they would actually harm books placed on their shelves.

Honestly, I just don’t see the point. What’s wrong with traditional bookshelves?

Footnotes:

1. Grammatically awkward, to boot. [↩]

The Red River Review has published my poem “Au Natural” in their May 2011 issue.

It’s dedicated to a close friend of mine; I wrote it after one of our evenings together.

So there you go, Jo: you’re now immortalized in poetry.

Take your mind off the horrifying prospect of four years under Harper’s leadership with a Conservative majority with books. Lots of books. Perhaps even a few short story collections?

2011 has been declared the Year of the Short Story, and May as Short Story Month.

You know what this means, right? Yup. Another links round up:

• It’s probably best to begin with the YOSS website itself, read its manifesto, and see how you can participate, either as a reader, writer, or general evangelist.
• YOSS was the brainchild of Sarah Selecky, Matthew J. Trafford and Jessica Westhead, and you can read more about their thoughts behind it in “Who’s the YOSS” over on Joyland.
• While you’re there, check out the rest of Joyland. It’s an online journal for short fiction with a focus on several cities in Canada and the US.
• Nathaniel G Moore has written a series of posts on Open Book Toronto about the state of short fiction. Read parts I, II, IIIIV and V here.
• John Barber, writing for The Globe and Mail, believes that the revival of the short story may be central to the future of publishing.
• In the Guardian, Chris Power asks “Is the short story really the novel’s poor relation?” Raymond Carver’s response sums it up well.
• However, Matt Lapata would seem to disagree in this essay for Glimmertrain, and comes at the short story from a different angle – with a view to its real competition.
• Last year the National Post conducted a series of interviews with short story writers in honour of short story month, and they’re archived here.

Chad Pelley, of Book Madam, pledged to read eight short story collections this year, and I’m sure I can top that — I’ve already got half a dozen collections sitting in my to-read pile. Beyond that, I know I want to read more Mavis Gallant, but I’m always open to suggestions.

Who else should I be reading?