Maud Newton rediscovers the power of a pile of free books.

• Dovegreyreader wonders if the world "middlebrow" can be rehabilitated.

• Michael Schaub makes a case that The Ground Beneath Her Feet is, in fact, the second best Salman Rushdie novel.

• A guest poster on Bookride explains what £90,000 looks like when it's disguised as a Georgian pamphlet of cricket scores.

• Covering the waterfront with Joseph Mitchell.

• A group of schoolchildren ask Unesco: "If our language is extinct then what language are we writing in?" The line would probably work better if I could give it in Manx.