LargeHeartedBoy — The Guardian shared a preview of Haruki Murakami's illustrated The Strange Library. Stereogum listed the best cover songs performed by R.E.M. The Book Report is a new literary video series featuring Michael Schaub and Janet Potter. Treble listed esse... more info

Stereogum — From the looks of the R.E.M. setlist site remtimeline.com, early R.E.M. gigs were glorified bar-band hootenannies. Before they’d written Murmur and Chronic Town, the band cut their teeth seemingly as philistines, playing sloppy, drunken versions of... more info

The Telegraph — Counting Crows channel Lynyrd Skynyrd and REM in their best collection of songs since their debut, says Helen Brown more info

Brooklyn Vegan — The ongoing Simpsons "Greatest Guest Stars" action figure line is adding Aerosmith, Tom Jones, Weird Al Yankovic, Elvis Costello, and astronaut Buzz Aldrin to the growing collection. This "fourth wave" of characters will be available in October, and ... more info

Stereogum — Ever since R.E.M. broke up a few years ago, Michael Stipe has had some free time, and he’s become something of a man-about-town in New York: showing up on Colbert, making speeches at awards ceremonies, writing music for films. For his latest endeav... more info

Stereogum — For the 25th anniversary of The Simpsons, the merchandising machine behind the show has been going all out with an FXX marathon, Hollywood Bowl concerts, cosmetics, and the release of collectible figures of various guest stars. Today The National Ent... more info

Pop Candy — The R.E.M. bassist and Big Star enthusiast talks about the band's lasting influence. more info

Pop Candy — Tuesday's headlines also include R.E.M., '84 movies and James Kochalka. more info

Pop Candy — A reader talks about seeing The Baseball Project at (where else?) a baseball stadium. more info

Brooklyn Vegan — by Andrew Sacher We already heard two songs from the new Blonde Redhead album, Barragan, and they've now put out a third, "The One I Love" (not an REM cover). It starts off as a soft acoustic number but more... more info