It’s time for people to roll out their best-of lists for the year, so here’s one from my excellent co-worker Angie B. She has excellent taste in books for teens, so I plan to read each of her top ten books for teens in 2002 (in order by author):

Catalyst by Laurie Halse Anderson
Feed by M.T. Anderson
Born Confused by Tanuja Desai Hidier
This Lullaby by Sarah Dessen
The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer
Coraline by Neil Gaiman
The Son of the Mob by Gordon Korman
Left for Dead by Pete Nelson
This Land Was Made for You and Me by Elizabeth Partridge
What Happened to Lani Garver by Carol Plum-Ucci

with honorable mention to:
Three Clams and an Oyster by Randy Powell
The Parallel Universe of Liars by Kathleen Jeffrie Johnson
Seven for a Secret by Mary C. Sheppard
Gossip Girl series

Entertaining Victorian science experiments. “Mad! Mad, they called me!! But I’ll show them…” Might be a good companion to the extremely entertaining graphic novel, “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” or any assorted steampunk fun.

Kroger is trying out a fingerprint id system to link you to a store credit account. It’s being tested in Texas. I don’t know which is stranger: the idea that Americans would flock to this sort of freaky digital (ha ha) identification scheme, or the possible return of grocery store credit. It’s very retro-future.

Another bit of philosophy to add to my newly renovated world-view, courtesy of Irony Central:

“If you think about things, it’s creepy. But the alternative is WORSE. Not think about things? To Hell with that!”

Today’s featured book is The Art of Food Sculpture: Designs and Techniques, by Yuci Tan. It features some standard stuff like radish roses and onion chrysanthemums and some amazing Chinese-style melon carving (including carving beautiful designs into the surface of the melon), but the crowning achievement for this volume: beautiful roses and chrysanthemums made from ham and salami. Mmmmm! Fleshy flowers!

The Stranger summarizes a study by the Future Music Commission, pointing out that weakening the regulation of radio station ownership results in consolidation of station ownership and a reduction of the diversity of what is heard on the radio. Most interesting is the discussion of radio station formats– they really aren’t all that different, when you look at what songs they actually play. But I bet you already suspected that.

Among the better ways to watch tv, a season at a time on DVD.

BBC has launched an all-hours all-spoken word radio station! Includes loads of comedy, plus mystery and SF (including the Goon Show and Discworld dramatizations).

The LA Public Library’s collection of historic menus is available online!

New York Public Library’s immense menu collection is still not digital, but other interesting things are.

The “US PATRIOT”* act makes it legal for the feds to demand library records, and illegal for the library to tell anyone about it. Libraries often attempt to solve social problems with bland signage. Here’s a few to tackle this latest challenge.

*I use SarcastiQuotes^TM because I feel that it is neither patriotic nor American. Discuss.