My dad Geoff, who sometimes comments under the name "anonymous", has filed this guest post in response to a thread over at lexicon harlot.

Incontrovertible proof that dogs have hairy limbpits. The first photo is of Maeve the Dog and the second is Deirdre of the Sorrows, two separate and distinct dogs forming a wide population spread for statistical analysis. And while modesty forbade me photographing their nether limbs you can take my word that they are hairy too.

But I am prepared to concede that they may be unusual. They seem to have hair (or at least soft, fluffy stuff) in places where other dogs have, for example, brains.

Melbourne has been officially named the second UNESCO City of Literature, after Edinburgh. I am not sure what this will mean apart from a funding boost from the state governmen for the state library....but hopefully, it will mean good things!

From booktrade info/google:

A book featuring an untitled Harry Potter prequel by JK Rowling became the fastest-selling collection of short stories when its print run virtually sold out in just one day. What's Your Story? is a collection of postcard-sized short stories by 13 authors including Doris Lessing, Nick Hornby and Sebastian Faulks. But it is the 800-word prequel to the Harry Potter series that had fans rushing to the tills, with 10,000 copies reportedly sold since its release on Thursday.

The book as a whole sounds pretty great, and I'm not sure it needed to be swamped by Rowling's contributon. My burning question, though: what's a postcard-sized short story? Who fits 800 words on a postcard?

It's the beginning of the end, I fear. Potter paraphernalia produced by an author who may not be able to let go of her creation. Here's how she introduces the story:

In a tantalising introduction to the story, Ms Rowling says her tale is not so much a self-contained story as a slice of narrative "from the prequel I am NOT working on".

Methinks the lady doth protest too much.

The Telegraph in the UK reports that a penniless author has sold shares in the royalties of his forthcoming novel in order to purchase time to write:

Investors can pay $2,000 (£1,000) in return for a 10 per cent share of the royalties of Tao Lin’s as-yet-unfinished second novel

This guy has a blog. It's a nice pitch. The comments underneath are amusing.

What he doesn't have is a particularly convincing financial case - author royalties are usually about 10% in a publication's first market....I'm about to do maths here....if $2000 is a 10% share he will need to make at least $20,000 in royalties to earn investors back their money (assuming books in the US cost about $20), which means selling 10,000 copies. And I think that's pretty good going. In America, a successful literary novel seels maybe 25,000 - 30,000 copies. He reckons he'll sell 13,000 copies and investors will make their money back in 32-40 months. Well, I guess we can see how it pans out for Tao Lin.

I'm not turned off by his financial speak, though I'm guessing it might backfire amongst some of the literati (that, after all, is what makes the gimmick noteworthy...)