Thursday's Flurry Of Words

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We really don’t want you to un-friend us. That’s why we’re a freemium site and don’t have a paywall. DSM aims for the top of online publishing, the present and future of our industry. Unless Katie Price kills it. She and the celebs that is. A doctor gave her her assets — those of the zombie bank variety, that is — and said doctor just might write a book about it. Plenty of his colleagues are. Louis Armstrong embraced those of all races and faiths, probably Koestler too. And remember, we may tweet, but we’re not full of sheet. — Andrew Geer

– Birds are singing, the sun is shining and I am joyful first thing in the morning without caffeine. Why you ask? Because it is Word of the Year time (or WOTY as we refer to it around the office). Every year the New Oxford American Dictionary prepares for the holidays by making its biggest announcement of the year. — Words of the Year in The Oxford American

Killing Publishing Softly

– “Publishers, stop spending your millions on this tripe,” she implored the book trade’s movers and shakers at The Specsavers Crime Thriller Awards, at the Grosvenor House Hotel, in Mayfair, where she was inducted into the Hall of Fame. — Jordan and the Death of Publishing in The Telegraph

– It’s not uncommon for writers to have a day job. Lawyers write. Soldiers and teachers write. But there seems to be a special connection between the medical profession and the art of writing. The list of doctors who are also novelists, playwrights and poets is long, and quite impressive: Anton Chekhov, William Carlos Williams, Walker Percy, W. Somerset Maugham and Arthur Conan Doyle, to name just a few. — Abraham Verghese on NPR

Skeptical About That Cigar?

– I cannot recall a book title that was less well-shaped to its subject. Far from being a “skeptic,” Arthur Koestler was a man not merely convinced but actively enthused by practically any intellectual or political or mental scheme that came his way. When he was in the throes of an allegiance, he positively abhorred doubt, which he sometimes called “bellyaching.” — Arthur Koestler in The Atlantic

– In addition to being the greatest jazz musician of the 20th century, Louis Armstrong was also the most beloved. “I never met anybody that didn’t love him that ever saw him work or ever has encountered him, had any connection or any business with him,” said Bing Crosby. The secret of Armstrong’s charm lay in the straightforward openness of his character. Though his personality was more complex than his fans realized, his public and private sides were essentially identical. One of his friends described him as “down-to-earth, natural, completely unpretentious, simple in the best sense of the word.” — Louis Armstrong and Jews in Commentary

Video: Louis Armstrong & Dizzy Gillespie Perform “Umbrella Man”