I’ve just sent out the State of the Thing, LibraryThing’s monthly newsletter of features, author interviews and various forms of bookish delight.

We have 1,779 free books, new publisher pages, a photo contest, news on our foray into the Dewey system, a few site improvements, and a list of the popular books this month.

Check your inbox or read it online.

This month’s edition has an interview with David Mitchell, about his new book The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. Abby asks him about the challenges of writing about Dutch and Japanese in English, as well as about how a monkey led to a “cute meet”.

We also have a podcast interview with Dr. Larry Rosen, about his new book Rewired: Understanding the iGeneration and the Way They Learn. Dr. Rosen and I talk about how children (and all of us) are able to learn while multitasking, and what technologies may be able to do for education. Is it a big deal that your teen wants to listen to music and chat online while doing homework? Dr. Rosen says not as much as you’d think. You can hear the podcast here.

Lisa Grunwald, author of The Irresistible Henry House, shares with us her summer reads, including The Right Stuff, by Tom Wolfe and The Puzzle King by Betsy Carter. Her own book Henry House has been touted as one of this summers must-reads, and is a New York Times Editor’s Choice as well as an Oprah Magazine “Book to Watch For.” Amazon and Audible each name Henry one of the “Best Books of 2010 — So Far.”

Read previous State of the Thing newsletters:
http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/State_of_the_Thing

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