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Harlequin is celebrating 60 years of publishing bliss. And you can celebrate, too!

Just go to http://www.harlequincelebrates.com/ and you will have the opportunity to download… are you ready for this? Sixteen free full-length romance novels. 16!

They cover the spectrum of romance sub-genres, from inspirational, to paranormal, to the classic storyline of “The Gazillionaire Foreign Guy’s Pregnant Virgin Bride”. (Huh?)

Actually, the Harlequin Presents they’re giving away is Susan Napier’s “Price of Passion,” and it looks fun. The first one I grabbed was Michele Hauf’s “Kiss Me Deadly”, but then again, I really like paranormal romances… and isn’t it a good cover?

Harlequin is celebrating all through 2009, but I don’t know how long these books will be up for grabs - so go grab yours before they’re gone. If Harlequin didn’t know how to publish books romance readers like, they wouldn’t have lasted for 60 years.

1. “Herman Rosenblat, who has acknowledged inventing his story of meeting his wife on opposite sides of a concentration camp fence, told ABC’s Good Morning America that he has no regrets and would tell the story again given another chance.

“It wasn’t a lie,” he said during a taped segment aired Wednesday. “It was my imagination, and in my mind, I believed it. Even now, I believe it.”

And guess whose TV program he was on several times? You guessed it! Oprah. Another faked memoir on Oprah. I’m starting to think her producers need to have every memoir author take a lie detector test before he or she can go on the show.

But if Rosenblat believes it, then he’d pass the test. Which makes him what?

2. The Dubai literary festival has banned British author Geraldine Bedell because her novel “contains references to homosexuality”. The book was going to be premiered at the festival, but now it can’t be… obviously.

“It’s ironic because the book is incredibly sympathetic to the Gulf,” said the author. And to Islam, by her account. Bedell’s publisher, Juliet Annan, said: “It’s all very unfortunate. In effect the censor has said they will ban it, which means no book chain can buy it.”

The festival’s Web site invites people to “Join 65 of the world’s leading authors in workshops, discussion groups and book signings at the first event of its kind in the Middle East.”

And what a celebration of creativity it will be.

3.  Neil Gaiman has won The John Newbery Medal - which is the top prize for children’s literature. It’s like a Kiddy Pulitzer, or Nobel Prize for Literature.

Yes, Neil Gaiman. The novel actually sounds charming. At the beginning of the story, a baby boy escapes the person who kills his older sister and his parents. “The boy totters to a decrepit cemetery, where he’s adopted by ghosts, christened Nobody Owens (Bod for short) and given the Freedom of the Graveyard.”

No doubt I’ll read it eventually. I’m just curious what’s happening over at the Newbery offices.

4. And if none of that made your head feel fuzzy…

The life of Anna Nicole Smith is set to become an opera. And not in a tiny theater somewhere. The Royal Opera in Britain is planning the show. You have time to save up because it won’t run until 2011.

Which makes sense because the Aztecs said the world will end in 2012.

Sorry about the title. I couldn’t help myself.

It seems that Ron Howard (movie director, once aka “Opie”) has let out a secret: Dan Brown has finished his latest book.

Yes, “Celebrity television show ‘Entertainment Tonight’ said movie director Ron Howard told the program in an interview that Brown has completed his third book based on the fictional, mystery-solving Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon.”

Ron Howard is someone who could possibly know since he has directed both “The Da Vinci Code” and “Angels & Demons”.  (The movie adaptation of “Angels and Demons” is due out May 15.)

“Late in the day, a spokeswoman for Brown’s publisher Doubleday, would say only that Brown ‘is making great progress,’ stopping short of a full confirmation or denial.”

The working title for the new book has been “The Solomon Key,” is based in Washington, D.C., and centers on the Freemasons… which would be hard to make interesting after the way it’s been over-killed in the past, but we live in hope.

There has been resounding quiet from Dan Brown since the publication of “The Da Vinci Code”. I imagine there’s a lot of pressure if you sell over 70 million copies of a book. Plus, he’s proabably had to do a great deal of research. But can anything live up to “The Da Vinci Code”? It seemed to strike like lightning.

And I’m a little skeptical because of one thing that really bugs me about “Angels & Demons”. The hero should have died on page 500 of the novel. Dead. Gone. No one could have survived what happened. I’m dubious about how they’ll make it work in the film.

There’s a news story today that Facebook has backed down on a measure that has people up in arms… but I’m going to go out on a limb and question what the cafuffle is about.

According to MSNBC.com, “Users complained would grant the social-networking site the ability to control their information forever, even after they cancel their accounts.” Really?

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder, had to step in to try and clear the air. Without the license, he said, Facebook wouldn’t be able to help people share information. “When someone shares a photo, a message or a status update telling friends what they are up to at the moment, they first need to grant Facebook a license so the site can pass that information along to authorized friends.”

On Sunday, the “popular consumer rights advocacy blog” (emphasis mine) Consumerist.com pointed out the changes to the Facebook terms of service.

Here are my problems with this:

1. Facebooks users are wrong. Why are users surprised when companies who offer a free service want to use patrons’ information to make money? If it’s made clear what information is going to be used, and at what level of anonymity, then what do you expect for using a free service?

2. Mark Zuckerberg is wrong. Obviously, he and his company have not made it clear what information would be used, and how. Transparency? They didn’t tell anyone! And now they’ve got to back-pedal and deal with a public relations problem.

And this isn’t the first time. MSNBC also reported that, “In late 2007, for example, a tracking tool called ‘Beacon’ caught users off-guard by broadcasting information about their shopping habits and activities at other web sites. After initially defending the practice, Facebook ultimately allowed users to turn Beacon off.”

So… they’ve learned nothing, obviously.

3. MSNBC is wrong. The entire article was slanted toward Facebook being the Big Bad Company, with little explanation of the actual details of the story. “Popular consumer rights advocacy blog”? Please. I now know more about Consumerist.com than I do about what Facebook actually changed in their terms of service. That’s pretty much the definition of bad reporting.

So what’s going to happen now?

Mark Zuckerberg wrote on the official blog, “Based on this feedback, we have decided to return to our previous terms of use while we resolve the issues that people have raised. We concluded that returning to our previous terms was the right thing for now.”

For now. Grief. I’m going to go have a cup of tea and pretend I didn’t read about any of this.