Friday Bookmarks

*Like Overheard in New York? Then you're going to love what the Bugged initiative has come up with. They want you to eavesdrop on strangers' conversations and use the material to create poems, stories and flash fiction, and then send it to them. They'll judge it, and the best entries will make it into an anthology.  

*The New York Times has a lovely piece about the personal inscriptions in the front of books, which includes a Serendipity-esque tale of how one man found an old friend's books in a used bookshop and was spurred to reconnect. 

*This is one library I'd happily live in forever.

*Do literary prizes matter to the public? This one apparently did. After it was announced on Wednesday that Barbara Kingsolver's latest, The Lacuna, had won the Orange prize for fiction, sales of the book jumped a staggering 835% literally overnight.

*Hey, fellow Chicagoans - looking for something to do this weekend? Check out the Printers Row literary festival. It runs Saturday and Sunday and features author signings, musical performances, panel discussions, readings, booths, vendors and more. See you there!