Some news about books and ebooks from around the web:

• There’s been a touch of kerfuffle lately over the way ebook formats look, which is great, as its another sign of the growing momentum behind ebooks. Here’s an interesting piece in Wired’s Gadget Lab blog (via TeleRead) about the ugliness of most ebooks. I couldn’t agree more, though at this point I’ll settle for an ugly typeface if my ebooks will just display properly. PDF has a lot of trouble, and though ePub is much better, ePubs still contain dozens more errors than paper books. As far as aesthetics, it’ll be interesting to see if ebooks trend more toward customizability, as digital things tend to. From the Wired piece, it sounds like publishers want to try to retain the intentional aesthetic of typefaces and formatting even though, as Eric brought up again yesterday, most of the visual package of a book is stripped away in its digital version. In the meantime, John August walks you writers through Kindle formatting.

• Our Literary Beach Books series will continue all the way through June; it’s designed to help you find fun summer reads that won’t insult your intelligence. I might be biased, but I think our lists are the best you’ll find if you like smart books and fun. However, in the interest of objectivity, here are some other lists. NPR’s Maureen Corrigan has a list of good detective novels. Also on NPR, Augusten Burroughs makes a few recommendations. On The Daily Beast, Charlaine Harris, who writes vampire novels, recommends a few reads. The Daily Beast also has a list of 13 beach books. Curb your enthusiasm on that Stieg Larsson novel, his last one was not as good as the hype.

• Last week, I made mention of a Harvard Law professor who was defending file-sharing in court as “fair use.” This week, that professor, Charles Nesson, wrote a very interesting op-ed for Ars Technica. In it, he discusses the ridiculous case against his client, and the insane way the RIAA and others protect their copyrights. Here’s another Ars Technica piece about Nesson’s case. Also from Ars: DRM v. fair use.

• Quick takes (weird edition): a Japanese writer is publishing a horror story on rolls of toilet paper; here’s a weird, funny video about newspapers and the Internet on Slate V; a vision of the next Kindle; here’s a weird piece in the Guardian about literary award lingo; E-Reads offers Dick Cheney a book deal; and, apropos of nothing, here’s an awesome video of an artist “painting” this week’s New Yorker cover on his iPhone.

• Random of the week: Vince Shlomi, despite being an unsavory fellow, makes some funny commercials. You’re probably familiar with the Sham-Wow, but I actually prefer the Slap Chop, with Shlomi’s bizarre list of things to put cheese on (at 2:29): “Tacos, freddicine, linguine, martini, bikini.” Even funnier than that are these two phenomenal Shlomi parodies: Paper Towels (parody of Sham-Wow), and Cock Shot (slightly NSFW parody of Slap Chop).

We appear to be back on track; apologies for the delay. Anyway, here’s some news about books and ebooks from around the web:

• So Maureen Dowd flagrantly plagiarized Talking Points Memo Sunday. Here’s the Telegraph UK story about it (the NY Times has suspiciously not written a story about the plagiarism). Here’s the column in question, with the paragraph now cited (to Josh Marshall), and an awkward correction at the bottom. Dowd’s excuse was that she only meant to plagiarize an email she got from a friend, and not another journalist. This makes me think that the definition of “fair use” will be an important point of debate in the next evolution of media. Should it be fair use for Dowd not to attribute her friend’s work just because it’s unpublished? Here’s a post from A Commonplace Blog about the pain of having your unpublished work plagiarized. On the other hand, how does fair use factor into the debate about piracy and file-sharing? One Harvard professor thinks P2P file-sharing should be considered fair use. Food for thought.

• The finalists for Amazon’s 2009 Breakthrough Novel Award have been announced; our own Sean Clark was a judge in the first round. If you’re feeling inspired, here’s a list of June writing contest deadlines. Or you can get involved with collaborative fiction at MobileRead.

• Quick takes: Dick Meyer’s list of the 100 best English-language novels on NPR.com, a response to The Modern Library’s list, didn’t sit well with Jacket Copy; here comes a Catcher in the Rye “sequel” not written by Salinger; new ereader announced from Bookeen; one independent bookstore in Kansas is going to interesting lengths to survive; lots of controversy, debate, and excitement about Murakami’s new novel; a British library embraces ereaders; and a very interesting story about the effects of ebook pricing in the Kindle store.

• Random of the week: Football fans, rejoice! The Time of Tears is over! After three painful years, Tony Kornheiser—he of the racist jokes and all-around terrible commentary—will not return to Monday Night Football 2009! Hallelujah! Kornheiser claims he quit due to his fear of flying, but that excuse smacks of a latent case of Chien-Ming Wang’s Disease (aka Chronic Suckitis). Replacing Kornheiser is Jon Gruden, ex-head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccanneers; the team fired him in January. Taste the happy.