The death of famous people is something that a lot of bloggers feel obliged to report, perhaps because it is the last word in news. Walter Cronkite’s death last week was very widely mentioned, even though he must have been, for most bloggers, an historical figure whose most important work, between the Fifties and the Seventies, preceded their birth — or at least their post-toddler sentience. (As I noted at Twitter, broadcast news ought to have ceased when Cronkite retired; the man who defined the genre proved to be irreplaceable.) Frank McCourt’s more recent celebrity (his best-known book, Angela’s Ashes, was published thirteen years ago) is a different matter altogether — in terms of fame, McCourt was a contemporary of the late David Foster Wallace.

But the big story, the one with plenty of wrinkles still to be ironed out, concerns Amazon’s blunderously peremptory removal of digital copies of George Orwell’s 1984 from the Kindles of people who had bought the book. The purchase price was refunded, but all the legal arguments in the world are not going to restore faith in Amazon’s probity unless it makes clear that it will never do any such thing in future. M Ryan Calo rounds up some of the better write-ups of the Orwell fiasco at The Millions.

Also, not to be confused with the Flying Spaghetti Monster: Humboldt squid, at the Guardian, and at Outside.

Drop me a line at rjk@dailyblague.com
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