First posts are so awkward, don't you think?

So, let's have some links!

Books Spirited to Safety Before Iraq Library Fire. This made me cry. Alia Muhammed Baker is a hero, everyone who helped her is a hero, and I don't throw the word hero around lightly. "In the Koran, the first thing God said to Muhammad was `Read,' " she said. Now there's some religious teaching I can get behind.

I include this story on the basis that one, a picture paints a thousand words and two, I used the word miscellany in my blog url for a reason: John Maloof bought 100,000 photo negatives and around 600 rolls of film in an auction. The collection turned out to be the life's work of French nanny Vivian Maier. "She wore big hats and coats, and men's shoes, and thought of herself as a film critic." The pictures are amazing!

In other text-related news, I've been playing a lot of Echo Bazaar, a browser-based game full of delicious text. Seriously, I wish this game were a book. It is an awesome game, but every snippet of text makes me want more, more, more! Here's a taste:

What is the Correspondence?

They say it's the map that connects every glimmer of moonish light to a star. They say it's the key that unlocks the secrets of bat-flights. They say it's a trap that someone found inscribed on a wall in the First City, and if you decode its complicated patterns you inevitably decide you're God, to the considerable detriment of your social life.

...delicious friend.