Tidbits: One ring really could rule us all...

• Big news in the publishing world...Random House and Penguin may merge.  As in, they are going on some dates together and thinking about taking it further...  Still, there may be a ring in their future...woah!  One ring really could rule us all (more on that below)!
• I love little libraries.  I want a fancy little library, so bad.  But until such time as I frolick away into the mists of the Stars Hollow town of my Gilmore Girl dreams and have me a little library on my hobbitesque yard, I will travel the world to visit tiny libraries, using this handy map.  Pakistan, anyone?  (Also, check out these photos of said world o little libraries).
• Good to know that despite their not being able to fit inside libraries, kids are learning to read good.  Heartening news: Pew says kids use libraries, youth librarians both say duh and do a kickline across the interwebs.  
• Remember AIM away messages?  LOL guyzzzz.  Literary away messages.  (#4 made me snort in a very unladylike way)
• I only have one thing to say about this.  If I had to go into battle, I'd probably use a Christopher Paolini book as a weapon. Maybe the nice boxed set I bought in 2007 under the impression that there were only going to be three...
• Veronica Roth on Disney Princess Factions.  So true, so true.  
• Perhaps you've heard about a little movie coming out in December called the Hobbit?  No? Perhaps you've been too holed up in your local Denny's eating about it.  Yes, eating about it.  According to this article, and the rest of the internet, "Denny’s is hoping one onion ring will rule them all."  Well played.  Bonus points for Air New Zealand's new flight safety video.  
• OH MAN.  I wish I could sew, because Mo Willem's Pigeon inspired costumes are so great...
• This is it people.  I already expressed how this makes me giggle endlessly even thinking about it.  And now...THIS.  This is the cake I want for my birthday.  Bring. It. On.  

Tidbits: Olympictures and other such bookish things

I'm going radio silent (unless Finnick is cast or Dumbledore comes out of the closet again) for about the next week, as I will be frolicking through the rolling hills of North Carolina, like our girl Katniss (except I will not be playing Fight Club for kids - just eating a lot of popsicles).  So until then, keep yourself busy with some of these links:

Make this a poster already, J.K. Rowling!

• Why isn't this a poster already? I want it every Harry Potter chapter illustration on my wall, yesterday.  I'm totally serious, I would spend money on this, J.K. Rowling.   You know, in case your children need another very expensive tree house (that I would like to live in as a real house). 

• Don't let Mo Willems drive the bus, ever stop writing fantastic children's books, or ever stop sharing his adorable fan mail with the Internets.  EVER.  

• The dames over at ForeverYA have created a Code Name Verity inspired cocktail.  I think James Bond would approve.

• Do you like to read, and find yourself in need of a bathing suit? These two seemingly unrelated interests, can, in fact, pair well.  Best website of the summer contender. 

• Today, I tuned into the Olympics at just the wrong moment, causing my jaw to drop like a gymnastic judges when, during the USA v. China women's volleyball announcer shouted "Destinee Hooker was stuffed out of the middle!"  I mean...I am a boy of fourteen trapped in the body of an adult woman.  There was no way this would ever fly under my radar.  And then someone sent me this link, to the best best names of 2012 Olympians (totally some Cases of the Terribles amongst them).  Some I think are a stretch, but I am delighting in numbers 10 and 16. 

• After seven or so misguided years spent playing girls basketball in my youth, I was delighted that the BBC Olympic body match quiz would finally prove to my parents what all 5'2" of me has known for years: I was not a basketball player.  I was pleasantly unsurprised to be assigned a category I'd long suspected: gymnastics.  And then, mid fist bump, I realized it was...men's gymnastics.  Yep. 
   
• If you are in London, and are one of the many people blowing up my feeds with spoilerz of Olympic proportions, I think you owe it to both of us to go and visit this maze of books while you take a time out from the spoiling.  Additionally, not a chance I wouldn't accidentally knock it over.  None.