Around Town, 7.29

1. A big shout-out goes to the podcasters at Just One More Book!! for giving Chicken Spaghetti a "premio" award. Since I can't decide on only seven blogs for additional honors, I nominate the whole Chicken Spaghetti blog roll in return!

2. The July Carnival of Children's Literature takes place on Thursday, the 31st at the blog "Read. Imagine. Talk." Consider submitting something, if you haven't already; use the handy form at the Blog Carnival site. What's a blog carnival? It's just a roundup of links to blog posts on a particular subject; in this case the topic is children's books.

3. Reading for a summer afternoon

• "Literacy Debate: Online, RU Really Reading?" by Motoko Rich, at the New York Times

• "Watch the Children, That Subversive Is Back" (about children's book author Tomi Ungerer), by Randy Kennedy, at the NYT

• "Lunch with the FT: David Remnick" [editor of the New Yorker], by Trevor Butterworth, at the Financial Times (via Arts & Letters Daily)

• "E.M. Forster, Middle Manager," by Zadie Smith, at the New York Review of Books

• Sonja Bolle's "Wordplay" column on The Thirteeen Clocks, which was written by James Thurber and recently re-issued by the New York Review Children's Collection. At the online edition of the LA Times.

4. This just in: the longlist for the UK's Booker Prize was announced. (via Paper Cuts)