- The NYT covers The Search for Philip K. Dick, Tachyon's new biography/memoir by Anne Dick. I bet we'll be getting this one, as Mr. Rowe has the other biographies and such.
- Without the wonderful Ellen Kushner's spotting, I'd have completely missed Fernanda Eberstadt's fascinating piece about countertenors now and the castrati then: The 18th-century musicologist Charles Burney describes a (possibly apocryphal) lung-power contest between the young Farinelli and a German trumpeter, in which Farinelli, having finally exhausted his rival, “not only swelled and shook the note, but ran the most rapid and difficult divisions, and was at last silenced only by the acclamations of the audience.” I loved her nonfiction book about music and Gypsy culture in the south of France, Little Money Street.
- A great piece in the Guardian about forgotten women of British science, based on revisiting the Royal Society archives. (Via Steph Burgis.)
- A secret chamber discovered in the National Library at Kolkata: "National Library has always been reputed to haunted. Now, here is a really eerie secret. A mysterious room has been discovered in the 250-year-old building a room that no one knew about and no one can enter because it seems to have no opening of kind, not even trapdoors."
- Adam Selzer on why pop culture references in fiction may not be The Ultimate Evil, or even something to worry about dating things too much.
- The DoD tries to discover the secret of a flying snake.
- Seanan McGuire offers some advice on the interactions (or not) between authors, readers and reviewers, particulary to authors on responding to reviews online. This is my favorite part: "Don't be Princess Demandy-Pants." (Although number five is undoubtedly the most important.)
- When I stop reading Poetry Daily, well, daily? But I did. And starting again is my pre-New Year's resolution.
- Special for Vampire Diaries fans: You have all seen Katherine Stalks Stefan Through the Centuries, inspired by that Bon Jovi concert revelation, right? BRILLIANCE.