Check out Ethnologue for a comprehensive cataloguing of the world's known living languages -- almost seven thousand of them! From Senegal's 36 tongues to China's 235, the site breaks down languages by size, family and country. Fascinating fact from the site: "95% of languages are spoken by only 6% of the world's people." Wow.

This week in our Blog Du Jour blog recommendations we talked about "virtual book tours." But what if you want to actually meet your favorite author, for real and in the flesh? Check out BookTour, "where authors and audiences meet," a listing of author events around the country.

This month marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Jack Kerouac's seminal Beat novel, On the Road. Blogs across the 'net are honoring this occasion, including boingboing, which excerpts an essay written by an old friend of Kerouac's here.

We've been digging into the terrific literary blog The Millions and found the writer C. Max Magee's entries on World War Two fiction. Why WW2 fiction? "I especially appreciate how the genre can illuminate elements of the conflict," he writes, "that history books cannot, for want of specificity and seriousness." Read his excellent posts here and here.

A what alert? Their site explains: "A ficlet is a short story that enables you to collaborate with the world.Once you've written and shared your ficlet, any other user can pick up the narrative thread by adding a prequel or sequel. In this manner, you may know where the story begins, but you'll never guess where (or even if!) it ends." Click here to give it a try.

The copyblogger website writes: "One would think that the wisdom of [advertising guru David] Ogilvy would have little application to social media marketing. However, I think his philosophies are dead on the money." Read how here.

A smart blog called Dumb Little Man "spent some time digging" through Purdue University's extensive online writing lab and distilled it down to 40 or so handy grammar tips, some with exercises, even. Good work! Check out the list here.