A few places around the web

• From a comment on this Guardian article on foreign fiction translations: "There's one great plus about being brought up in a minority language and that is it forces you to explore literature from other countries." The truth is that it will take us many more years to begin to approach the diversity in world fiction many other countries have. The comments give rise to many different approaches to translations (from those who avoid them to those who embrace them), and make for very interesting reading.
• The last remaining hope for eBook library lending has decided that it's going to go the jerk route. Great to see Random House understands the importance of libraries and has decided that instead of making its book freely and cheaply available to the same institutions that greatly encourage reading and book-buying, they're going to up the price...
• ...which leads us to a nicely concise post from a while back about the recent publishing trends and the eMess*. Almost everything I've ever wanted to say (and have been unable to phrase) about publishing can be found in that post.
• To end on a slightly cheerier note, I am quite impressed with this concept of a picture book library for small children. What better way to get these kids to love reading, if not give them a wonderful place to fall in love?

* I realize this is not an official term to describe the publishing industry's problems with ePublishing, but it fits nicely in this case...