JMW Turner’s “Ovid banished from Rome,” in honor of Ovid’s 2,060th birthday.

So, all over the world right now, Monday is happening. Don’t look at us: we didn’t do it.

Here’s some interesting tidbits to follow as we all get through this together:

• Last week global publishers converged on a small city just off the coast of Europe for this year’s London Book Fair. Melville House was there, and surprised to discover our booth had been placed… right next to Amazon’s? Some good-natured ribbing from our co-publisher was bound to ensue:

Someone’s messing with @melvillehouse: this is our neighbor at the London Book Fair. pic.twitter.com/dv7JhekdsQ

— Dennis Johnson (@MobyLives) March 14, 2017

At the LBF, things remain bleak at the Amazon booth. No visitors, and half the staff has fled. pic.twitter.com/XgyYx3bLIj

— Dennis Johnson (@MobyLives) March 14, 2017

Day 3 at #LBF17: Amazon Publishing gets a meeting! The greeter is so excited he … leafs through a catalogue … pic.twitter.com/uURGi5NcUg

— Dennis Johnson (@MobyLives) March 16, 2017

Hey @BookPeople! At #LBF17, the Amazon staff sits around re-thinking the euro campaign, “Keep Amazon Monopolist.” pic.twitter.com/R8Robc9mmT

— Dennis Johnson (@MobyLives) March 16, 2017

At #LBF17, troubles compound for Amazon: an enormous line for an event completely seals off its expensive stand. pic.twitter.com/qTUXl3lloz

— Dennis Johnson (@MobyLives) March 16, 2017

At #LBF, the line has cleared but still no takers. Half the Amazon team has fled. The fair is ending. Despair! pic.twitter.com/GFVzWhpUWk

— Dennis Johnson (@MobyLives) March 16, 2017

• Another thing happened in London was an appearance by Pierre Laval, the Second Circuit judge who wrote the decision in last year’s Authors Guild v. Google, the most recent federal case to consider the legality of Google Books. Laval’s decision defined Google’s digital mining of humankind’s accumulated verbal output as fair use, affording it legal grounds to continue. Writing in Publishers Weekly, Andrew Albanese said Laval characterized judicial latitude as “the key to American fair use,” and quoted the judge that Authors Guild had not been “quote, a close case.”
• A few months ago, we wrote about how the behavior of the Trump administration had veered so far into Crazytown (population: all of us) that Alexandra Petri’s satirical Washington Post column, ComPost, had basically become a source of solid news reporting. It seems we were onto something: Petri’s column from last Friday opens with the question of “why the White House daily newsletter included my piece about the budget, a piece composed almost entirely of onomatopoeic noises (PEW PEW! GRRRRRRRR!) typed out in all caps.” Are we having fun yet?
• The town of Trier, Germany, where Karl “Marky” Marx was born and raised, has decided to accept a twenty-one-foot bronze statue of him as a gift from the government of China, amid controversy. While not nearly as cool as the Robocop statue Detroit is working on, the statue appears to be, still, very cool. As for the biopic forthcoming from Raoul Peck, director of the James Baldwin doc I am Not Your Negro, it is not called “Karl!” but should be, looks dope, and hits US theaters this June.
• Speaking of statues, last week Nato Thompson offered his thoughts on the “Fearless Girl” statue attracting attention in New York’s Financial District. In proof that things can always get worse, Gothamist’s Rebecca Fishbein reports that two Trumpsters showed up this weekend, Pepe paraphernalia in hand, to give her a quick, MAGA-style makeover. Ugh.
• Also last week, we offered a critique of the narrative that younger readers are driving the dominance of print over e-books. As Angelica Mari writes for Zdnet, digital pricing is set to become more competitive in Brazil, where a court has just ruled to extend tax incentives already enjoyed by print books to electronic formats as well. The Guardian, in the meantime, continues to write about the relative strength of print sales, to the chagrin of wealthy, older pirates everywhere.
• Does “David Brooks hits new low” count as a headline? David Brooks is suffering from a condition much like drunkenness, except instead of alcohol the impairment is caused by surplus accumulated experience being David Brooks. David Brooks, please go on vacation and work some of the David Brooks out of your system.
• In January, we began writing about what the cuts Trump wants  to make to library funding might mean for everyday life in America. Last week, American Library Association president Julie Todaro issued a statement on behalf of the organization, calling the cuts “counterproductive and short-sighted.” She continued, “America’s more than 120,000 public, school, college and university and many other libraries are not piles of archived books. They’re trusted centers for education, employment, entrepreneurship and free inquiry at the core of communities in every state in the country — and in every Congressional district. And they’re staffed by the original search engines: skilled and engaged librarians.” Mic drop.
• If you haven’t read Jarrod Shanahan’s Days Spent Doing Too Much of Fucking Nothing, on Lil Wayne’s boring, brilliant memoir of his time at Rikers Island, well, you may not be living your best life.

The world lost a singular musician this weekend, when the better-than-any-of-us-deserved Chuck Berry slipped off into silence at the age of ninety. It’s hard to believe he’s gone, and also kind of amazing to realize he was here with us, through all of it, up till now. A word of advice: do not forget to love Chuck Berry’s slower, softer music:

It’s also a good time to check out some of his late-sixties, slightly more baroque stuff, which ranges from huh?-inducing to genuinely awesome: