The Room for Debate blog at the New York Times featured a very interesting discussion this week about the choice that Cushing Academy recently made to dispense with all the books in their library. If you didn't hear, the school recently made the choice to get rid of the books in their collection [mostly donating them to community organizations]. They're now using the space for a 'learning center' that focuses primarily on electronic resources.

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It seems some products are made just for this blog. If you're a regular reader, you're sure to love the BOOK. With a time-honored name, this product will protect your Kindle, Macbook, or iPad while styling it in a way that may be just a little familiar to you. Take a look after the jump:

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AbeBooks (UK), an online bookseller, brings us the fabulous Weird Books Room, which features all things odd in the literary world. You may be familiar with the equally wonderful Rare Books Room, but the Weird Books Room is decidedly different. Showcasing books like Summer with the Leprechauns: A True Story, Spaghetti Art Ware: Poodles and Other Collectible Ceramics, and Ductigami: The Art of the Tape, the list is full of little unknown treasures, however strange they may be.

But the whole idea of categorizing a group of books as 'weird' raises a number of issues. What exactly makes a book 'weird'? Are the compilers of the Weird Book Room and those who suggest books judging them by their covers? Has the publishing industry's preference for catchy titles created a cottage industry for 'weird' books?

Despite making a genius marketing move by repackaging unknown or unpopular books, AbeBooks has given us a great platform for discussing the whole idea of 'weirdness' in literature. And you can't put the words 'odd' and 'book' in a sentence without talking about the granddaddy of literary oddities, Tristram Shandy.

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman is an 18th century fake memoir full of digressions and tangents that stretch it to nine volumes published over ten years. One of the earliest comic novels, it's so chock-full of the strange that it becomes difficult to read. Despite its weirdness, the book has won a place in the literary canon where it's remembered as weird and wonderful, silly and scholarly. As such it's not something that would ever wind up in the Weird Books Room. Or is it?

The end of 2009 is fast approaching, and I am excitedly working on a number of projects as we prepare to enter the new year. The PT podcast is still at large, but I hope it shall finally arrive in 2010. And I'm also preparing to pop up in a few other blogs and publications in the coming months.

With that said, there's a great story on poetry and tech over at the fantastic Vroman's Bookstore Blog. The article discusses the multi-platform lit mag Electric Literature, which we covered when it first debuted. Patrick, over at Vroman's, points out an issue involving Electric Literature and multiple posts. Here's a quick excerpt:

'The hope was that, by syndicating the story across so many different accounts, Electric Literature would reach a wider audience.

It didn’t work. There was too much overlap among the social networks of the various co-publishers, leading to many people seeing the same tweet several times. The book world has responded at first with confusion, and then moved quickly to anger, scorn and ridicule.'

Nothing like a little book-related tech drama to finish out the year. Be sure to check out the full article at Vroman's, in which Patrick digs deep into this issue.

Thanks to all of you for sticking with Paradise Tossed in 2009. We look forward to continuing to provide insights into the growing world of poetry and technology in the year to come. See you in 2010!

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/spencerfinnley/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0