State of the VanderWorld: Molting Season, Contest, Dmitri Nabokov, and More

Just a few odds and ends.First off, my molting season post from a few months back has elicited a response from a fellow molter.Second, the Tragic Demise contest deadline has passed and Matt Staggs will soon be picking the winners.Third, Luis Rodrigues, the web genius who set up this Word Press blog, informs me that it appears that the comment attributed to Dmitri Nabokov, Vladimir Nabokov's son, on this post is almost certainly indeed from Dmitri. That comment read in part, "DID YOU GENERATE THIS UTTER NONSENSE (ABOUT THE LAURA DRAFT AND MY FRIEND MARTIN AMIS) IN SOME MALIGNANT NIGHTMARE." Personally, I think DN probably has better things to do than read Ecstatic Days, so I'm still suspicious. And a little aghast, since I'm a huge Nabokov fan and certainly mean no harm in anything I post about him.Fourth, note that there's a new sidebar to the right in which I'll be posting the covers of recommended books with a link to ordering them on Amazon. I get a tiny percentage of all sales, but I won't be recommending just any old thing. If there's a book in that sidebar, it has my highest recommendation. Period.Fifth, I just want to put in a plug for io9, which is seen as a pop culture bastion but has several posts that address serious topics, like the Hugos, commentary on the somewhat contradictory posts by Doctorow and Scalzi re YA fiction, and much else. (Yeah, there's a lot of fun stuff, too, but it's usually intelligent fun stuff.) I know the reading tastes of the people who run io9, and it's high-quality stuff.Sixth, a short piece at Amazon on Stephanie Meyer's first novel for adults, The Host.