Winding Up the Week #487

An end of week recap “What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.” – Salman Rushdie I will be scooting off to Liverpool again towards the end of next week and probably won’t return until late on Saturday, which means my wind up may not arrive until Sunday 18th October – and in what form it will appear, I’m not yet entirely sure. We have an actual literary event to get our biblioteeth into today, for it is Bookshop Day in all manner of countries around the world – a fine excuse to celebrate the importance of local bookstores. In fact, Australia gets its own special Love Your Bookshop Day, giving readers there an opportunity to honour the independent shops that keep their communities reading. It is also the final day of Banned Books Week in the USA (primarily), though many other countries like to lend their voices informally to the freedom‑to‑read conversation. Today, the birthday bells chime for (among others) the national writer of Finland Aleksis…