It's official, mega-publishers Random House and Penguin have merged. And, I am woefully disappointed that they didn't opt to go with my vote to rename themselves Random Penguins--- instead, they've settled on the boring---and completely uninspiring---Penguin Random House. Even the equally amusing, Penguin House, would have been an exciting change... I mean, come on... surely a company that is based in the creative uses of language would jump at the opportunity to inspire a bit of humor. No? In other global-literary news, the folks at the Asia Pacific Writers and Translators Association, aka AP Writers, have been inspired to create a World Readers' Award, that will take an author's nationality out of the equation. The idea having been inspired by their feeling that the Pulitzer is too American, the Man Booker is too British and the Nobel is too Euro-centric---- How they plan on making the World Readers' Award more "global" when their in...