The Big Bad Book Blog's Link Love

In true book nerd fashion, we’ve rounded up our favorite publishing-related links of the week for you! Read on to uncover the best in books this week. If you want to know about these links sooner than Friday afternoon, follow us on Twitter—@GreenleafBookGr.

• A CNN study says Generation X is balanced and happy. As much as generational “stereotypes” can drive us all a little bonkers, this is a nice read considering the wrath Generation X has received over the past decade. 

• These days it seems there is a way to make anything social. Mashable highlights the ways in which ebooks are being socialized by Findings, a site where readers can collect, share, and discuss notable passages and texts from ebooks.

• The hottest debate in the publishing world: which are better, ebooks or printed books? Let’s get down to the bottom of this. Regardless of sales, is there really a difference? Apple to oranges, or all the same?

• Steve Jobs, are you watching us? Kat Bailey seems to think so. Bailey created a Watched by Steve blog tribute. Playful memorial, or fanatic fan?

• What the ****? Did that get your attention? Some publishers seem to think so. The trend of using profanity in titles has become increasingly popular over the last year. An interesting example can be seen in the “fluke hit,” by Adam Mansbach and Ricardo Cortes’ bestselling kids' book parody, Go the F**k to Sleep. This book has spent six months on the bestseller lists! Whaaat.

• Time to get geeky! The greatest geek books of all time are listed by Wired. Robert Heinlin and George Orwell, we would hang out with you guys any day of the week.

• Ebooks are still on the rise, claiming a whopping 116% increase in August. “For the first eight months of 2011, ebook sales increased 144.4%, to $649.2 million, from 18 reporting publishers to the AAP monthly statistics program," wrote Publishers Weekly. "Sales were off by double digits in all trade print segments in the January-August period, although sales in the religion category were up 9% in the year to date at the 22 reporting houses.”

• Is the Nook Color 2 Launching on November 7? TechCrunch seems to think so. Last year this tablet set the standard for enhanced e-readers with its color LCD screen and Android release, but we’ll see if it can compete with Amazon’s Kindle Fire.

• Theories debunked! We highly enjoyed the Used Furniture Review article “10 Myths About Bookselling.” Myths include “Bookselling Isn’t a Career,” “Bookselling Is a Low-Stress Job,” and “Bookselling is Dead.”

• Kobo announces an arm in publishing as it signs e-reader sales deal with UK bookstore chain W H Smith. We give kudos to Kobo for their attempt to compete with Amazon in offering complete publishing services for authors.