81 Writers on the Books They Loved in 2021from contributors to Freeman's https://lithub.com/81-writers-on-the-books-they-loved-in-2021/ 

The metaverse (Meta & Universe) is a hypothesized iteration of the Internet, supporting persistent online 3-D virtual environments through conventional personal computing, as well as virtual and augmented reality headsets.  Metaverses, in some limited form, have already been implemented in video games such as Second Life.  Some iterations of the metaverse involve integration between virtual and physical spaces and virtual economies.  Current metaverse development is centered on addressing the technological limitations with virtual and augmented reality devices.  The term "metaverse" has its origins in the 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash.  It has since gained notoriety as a buzzword for promotion, and as a way to generate hype for public relations purposes by making vague claims for future projects.  Information privacy and user addiction are concerns within the metaverse, stemming from challenges facing the social media and video game industries as a whole.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaverse 

From the Pulitzer to the Booker, the Nebula to the Edgar, here are the winners of the biggest book prizes of 2021.  https://lithub.com/the-award-winning-novels-of-2021/ 

“Looking for recipes to serve at your Feast of the Seven Fishes?  We've got you covered with 53 of our best Italian seafood recipes.  You'll find delicious versions of baccalà, clams casino, shrimp pasta, fried squid, bagna cauda, a variety of seafood stews, and more.  They're all perfect for this traditional Italian-American feast that's served on Christmas Eve and features seven (or more) fish dishes.  Hope you're hungry!”   https://www.epicurious.com/holidays-events/italian-seafood-recipes-for-the-feast-of-the-seven-fishes-gallery 

Cyberspace is a concept describing a widespread interconnected digital technology.  "The expression dates back from the first decade of the diffusion of the internet.  It refers to the online world as a world 'apart', as distinct from everyday reality.  In cyberspace people can hide behind fake identities, as in the famous The New Yorker cartoon."  The term entered popular culture from science fiction and the arts but is now used by technology strategists, security professionals, government, military and industry leaders and entrepreneurs to describe the domain of the global technology environment, commonly defined as standing for the global network of interdependent information technology infrastructures, telecommunications networks and computer processing systems.  Others consider cyberspace to be just a national environment in which communication over computer networks occurs.  The word became popular in the 1990s when the use of the Internet, networking, and digital communication were all growing dramatically; the term cyberspace was able to represent the many new ideas and phenomena that were emerging.  The term "cyberspace" first appeared in the visual arts in the late 1960s, when Danish artist Susanne Ussing (1940-1998) and her partner architect Carsten Hoff (b. 1934) constituted themselves as Atelier Cyberspace.  Under this name the two made a series of installations and images entitled "sensory spaces" that were based on the principle of open systems adaptable to various influences, such as human movement and the behaviour of new materials.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberspace 

Non sequitur means "does not follow."  It is a type of logical fallacy:  a bad argument that makes no sense.  It is defined as a deductive argument that is invalid.  The argument could have true premises, but still have a false conclusion.  A non sequitur argument takes something that people accept is true, and says that because this is true, the conclusion is right.  The problem is that the conclusion has nothing to do with the premise (original statement that people agree on).  People often have difficulty applying the rules of logic.  For example, a person might say this syllogism is valid:  All birds have wings.  That creature has wings.  Therefore, that creature is a bird.  It would only be true if all winged animals were birds (which is not so).  https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non_sequitur

Sarah Weddington, a Texas lawyer who as a 26-year-old successfully argued the landmark abortion rights case Roe v. Wade before the U.S. Supreme Court, died December 26, 2021.  She was 76.  Raised as a minister's daughter in the West Texas city of Abilene, Weddington attended law school at the University of Texas.  A couple years after graduating, she and a former classmate, Linda Coffee, brought a class-action lawsuit on behalf of a pregnant woman challenging a state law that largely banned abortions.  The case of "Jane Roe," whose real name was Norma McCorvey, was brought against Dallas County District Attorney Henry Wade and eventually advanced to the Supreme Court.   Weddington argued the case before the high court twice, in December 1971 and again in October 1972, resulting the next year in the 7-2 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide.  Weddington later wrote a book on Roe v. Wade, gave lectures and taught courses at the University of Texas at Austin and Texas Women's University on leadership, law and gender discrimination. She remained active in the political and legal worlds well into her later years, attending the 2019 signing ceremony for a New York state law meant to safeguard abortion rights should Roe v. Wade be overturned.  https://www.npr.org/2021/12/26/1068168254/sarah-weddington-the-lawyer-who-at-26-successfully-argued-roe-v-wade 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2474  December 27, 2021