Publishing: Oh good, they’re at it again. Borders and B&N have chosen not to stock a book on the basis the girl on the cover isn’t white, and therefore it won’t sell. Well, no, not if bookshops won’t stock it. The My Friend Amy blog pens an open letter to them.

It’s just sad, really. How many times will Young Adult fiction do this? It’s the book buyers turning down covers like Silver Pheonix’s original that leads to publishers putting white girls on the covers of books like Magic Under Glass and Liar, in order to sell them. To be honest, I’m kinda glad Borders UK went bust (even if they were a different company).

Interest-Piquing: Disheartening in a different way, though personally I like a good heist story (and a bad pun): ‘Tome Raider’ jailed over rare book thefts. The BBC dedicates a magazine article to it too. I’m sure I ought to be alarmed and upset at the ruinning of old books, but to be honest thefts like this intigue me. I’d love to see a movie about a book or map thief, though I’m not sure quite how well the endless hours staking out libraries and the tension of getting permits to rare book sections would translate to the big screen.

InsPiring: It’s been a bit of a week for really weird news stories. How about Elephant Chilli balls? Or maybe the latest thing in celebrity bios: bloody books? Or the fact Manchester City Council were hoisting cars to paint yellow lines underneath them, and then ticketing the cars after putting them back down? Or we could consider the tale of the Argentine jail guarded by dummies in hats?

Procrastination: Large Hadron Collider sounds, to download and enjoy. It’s the sound of science! How awesome is that?