• Both Carrie and Callie share their thoughts on Marisha Pessl’s Special Topics in Calamity Physics. Callie will be conducting a roundtable next week to discuss the novel.
• There are two novelists named on Time‘s influential people list: Nora Roberts and David Mitchell. The latter certainly has had titular influence upon me.
• Audible is slowly getting out of the red.
• Mohsin Hamid reports that of course, he’s biased.
• Nicholas Lehman on the advent of broadcast television and the James Baughman book that documents it.
• Bill Bryson is now fighting litter. Whether a book on the subject is forthcoming is anyone’s guess.
• Egyptian journalists and bloggers are fighting oppression. (via Laila)
• Sarah reviews the new Nathan Englander book in the Philly Inquirer.
• Spidey 3 is getting somewhat mixed reviews.
• Comic Mix reminds folks that tomorrow is Free Comic Day.

• Sarah examines the Yiddish controversy surrounding Chabon’s latest.
• The latest installment of In Our Time concerns Spinoza. (via Mark Thwaite)
• The jury is now deliberating over the Cussler/Sahara lawsuit. Is Cussler boasting about the number of books he sold or did Crusader Entertainment breach their contract?
• Frances Trollope’s America.
• The Book Marketing Society is trying to find the book that best defines the 20th century. The BMS, of course, does this purely out of the goodness of their collective heart. They have absolutely no interest in publicizing overpraised books. Which is why such century-defining books as Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch and Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary are the list. I know that when I ponder a book that best represents the escalation of technology, the horrors of Hitler and Stalin, McCarthyism, mass production, the influence of Freud and feminism, and too many 20th century ideologies and innovations here to list, a trivial memoir about soccer and a novel about a frumpy thirtysomething who can’t find Mr. Right are the first books that come to mind.
• Thomas Jones examines an interesting looking book about how the typewriter’s relationship to the gender divide.
• Ralph De La Cruz considers Ricky Smith.
• There’s a grassroots movement to get Peter Bagge’s The Incorrigible Hulk reprinted, which Marvel is now holding hostage. (via Eric Reynolds)
• In a surprise move, Carl Bernstein’s biography of Hillary Clinton has been moved up to June 19 from its original August pub date. Of course, this recent announcement has nothing whatsoever to do with Obama moving ahead of Hillary in the polls this week.
• Quixote Sound Machine?
• Frank Wilson’s contrarian take on McCarthy has spawned some fireworks.
• So this is the new way. When promoting literacy, boast about how fast your program is instead of the ability of people to understand it. You may as well describe how fast you ate your breakfast, instead of how tasty it was.
• Joan Baez has been banned from performing for US troops.
• Shannon Wheeler: “I looked at Gary and said ‘Why should I support you when you’ve never done anything for me?'”
• Thank you, Mr. Dirda, for spawning Novelgobbler. (via Galleycat)
• John Cleese makes love to a Barbie doll.
• Summer book recommendations from booksellers. (via LHB)
• loltrek (via MeFi)

• Over at the LBC, nominee Marshall Klimasewiski has begun guest-blogging and, in his inaugural post, he observes, “My impression is that there are better answer to that every year, and anyone who thinks blogging is mostly about bitching and tearing things down hasn’t been visiting sites like this. (Not that there’s anything wrong with a little eloquent bitching, of course.)”
• Frank Wilson offers a contrarian take of The Road.
• Callie Miller nails what’s wrong with dismissing Web 2.0. And Scott has a few words of his own about Andrew Keen’s approach.
• Hitch on the Zachary Leader Amis bio.
• Milwaukee Journal Sentinel books editor Geeta Sharma-Jensen now goes “meekly into the recording studio” for the MJS‘s podcasting efforts.
• A fantastic cartoon describing the book blogger. (via Galleycat)
• In this month’s The Believer, Rolf Potts revisits Ginsberg. (via Ron Silliman)
• I was going to respond to John Freeman’s spintastic NPR appearance, but thankfully Colleen has echoed what I wanted to say.
• Former Chicago Sun-Times Book Editor Henry Kisor has kind words: “If, as time goes on, book sections should give way to literary blogs, I don’t think that is going to be such a bad thing. Discerning readers will always gravitate to the best-written blogs and the amateurish sites will wither on the vine.”
• Incidentally, Richard Ford may be interested to know that John Cheever did his writing in the basement. And I think we can all agree that Cheever had very little to offer.
• Yann Martel has a sense of humor. (via Bookninja)

• I intended to link to it yesterday, but this week at the Litblog Co-Op, folks are discussing Marshall Klimasewiski’s The Cottagers. There’s talk of horrible vacations and, on Friday, a podcast interview will follow.
• Charles Shields reveals how he used the Internet to conduct research for his Harper Lee biography.
• George Eliot’s letters to Henry Lewes have gone online. You can access the letters here. My only question: why didn’t they do this in the middle of March?
• Patti Smith hits the New Yorker.
• Kathleen Parker: “People who read books are different from other people. They’re smarter for one thing. They’re more sensual for another. They like to hold, touch and smell what they read.” What Parker didn’t tell you is that some “people who read books” can also be found in criminal databases and some of the more unsullied readers are prone to displays of snobbery. I’ve known some pretty smart and sensual people who don’t read in my time and have even managed to get more than a few of them attracted to books. Largely because I was able to assure many of them that I was a schmuck. The key to getting people to read is to be humble and to listen very carefully to people. Then you can figure out what kind of books they’re likely to go crazy over. (via Bookslut)
• Niall Griffiths revisits Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and finds that there’s more inside the book than during his initial read. I’d like to see more newspapers do this. Litblogs are often accused of rushing out their posts (and I would agree with this to some degree), but many print critics are equally celeritous in banging out their reviews to meet deadlines. Because of these conditions, I have to ask whether a book like Pynchon’s Against the Day really received a fair reception, or, for that matter, whether most books are fairly assessed in today’s environment. Mr. Asher has more to say about the socioeconomics of book reviewing.
• Tales from the Reading Room compares the postwar Paris cultural atmosphere with today’s troubling media environment.
• Who knew that Harlequins were mining Village People templates for their book covers?
• There’s a documentary about equuphiliacs now making the rounds.
• I got the tip from Maxine, but it appears that Lindsay Anderson’s if… is getting the Criterion treatment. Now if they can somehow get Anderson’s other masterpiece O Lucky Man! onto DVD, we’ll all be very lucky.
• Michiko on Michael.
• The L.A. Times Book Prize winners.
• 50+ Free Resources for Effective Reading. (via Book Glutton)
• Mother Jones: “By the end of the century, half of all species on Earth may be extinct. Who will survive the world’s dwindling biodiversity, and why?” (via Isak)
• Gawker takes the NYTBR podcast theme song appropriately to task.
• Here’s a presidential platform I can get behind — apparently, in more ways than one.
• It had to happen sooner or later: Twitterlit, which comes from one Debra Hamel.
• The Audit Bureau of Circulations has reported sharp drops in newspaper circulation in Spring 2007.
• Also, the New York Times will no longer participate in the White House Correspondents Association dinner. Personally, I blame Rich Little.
• Arrested for holding placards of Orwell and the Magna Carta.
• Against National Poetry Month. (via Books, Words, and Writing)
• Scooby Doo manga. (via The Beat)
• Amazing.
• I agree with Lev Grossman. The X-Files has run its course.

• China Miéville wants more opinionated children’s literature. (via Sarah)
• Kate Bollock talks with Lydia Davis. (via Maud)
• Linked elsewhere but worth your time: Chabon’s rewriting adventures.
• Wait a sec. Henry Alford wrote a somewhat funny piece? (via Bookninja)
• Francine Prose on Jim Crace.
• Apparently, the only way translators can get any acknowledgment or respect is when they spill their love lives to journalists.
• Marvel goes literary.
• Cutting the life out of literary culture.
• Paul Di Filippo on the Jamie Bishop memorial service.

• It looks like the Mystery Writers of America share the SFWA’s troubling inability to understand that we’re now in the 21st century. Sarah has distressing news about the Edgars. The MWA, perhaps jittery because of Stephen King’s appearance, has pronounced that “cell phones, cameras and all other electronic devices” must be turned off in order to prevent certain attendees from live blogging the proceedings. I’ve never heard of such a preposterous embargo, which runs counter to the spirit of celebrating mystery writers, who I’m sure must be miffed to here that hubristic forces wish to enable their achievements to be disseminated across the Internet in real time. I’d suggest to all Edgar attendees to live blog anyway and let the spirit of samizdat reign under tablecloths.
• And speaking of hubris against online expression, Michael Dirda has just equated litblogging to “shallow grandstanding and overblown ranting, all too often by kids hoping to be noticed for their sass and vulgarity.” And that’s not all. “Playgrounds, as we all remember, are ruled by bullies, loud-mouths and prima-donnas.” Well, so long as you’re using ad hominem instead of specific examples, Mr. Dirda, I think you’ve proven that vulgarity is actually more your forte. After all, “literary and artsy gossip is always welcome” and Leo Lerman’s journals are “full of delicious anecdotes about shallow, venal, power-mad, sex-crazed and often unlikable people” (compare Dirda’s review with this decidedly less gossipy coverage from Liesl Schillinger). Yup. That’s really the stuff that makes thoughtful book review sections. Fortunately, aside from Dirda’s Wieseltieresque preening, Washington Post Book World remains a first-class publication well worth your time and certainly worth saving.
• I can absolutely assure readers that A.M. Homes is funny. Callie has more.
• Dan Wickett interviews Andrea Portes.
• Mark Binelli is now blogging at the Litblog Co-Op.
• The Complete Review has a fantastic roundup of PEN World Voices coverage.
• C. Max Magee has thoughts on how to fix broken book sections.

• No Fear for the Future has collected movie moments in which authors show up for no reason. (via Bookslut)
• Joshua Ferris hunts classic fiction for office situations.
• William Gass has won the Truman Capote Award for A Temple of Texts.
• Raymond Carver’s screenwriting career. (via Maud)
• It’s apparently TV Turnoff Week. I’d like to propose Ignoring Your Appliance Because Everybody Else is Doing It Week.
• More bad news for book coverage at the Chicago Tribune.
• James Franco has turned to writing. His first novel has the working title Who’s Your Daddy, Dafoe?
• China Miéville profile. (via Jenny D)
• Books I Wouldn’t Want to Publish.
• The L.A. Times and the Chicago Tribune have slashed 250 jobs. Christ.
• In similar cost-cutting news, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel will no longer be delivering papers to delivery boxes. This is the first phase of the “Go to the Store and Get Your Own Damn Paper, You Lazy Bastard!” program that some newspapers plan to roll out in 2007.
• I had no idea that there were Dark Shadows audio adventures.

• The Eisner Award nominations have been announced, and one of the delightful surprises is Bob Burden’s extremely surreal work for the Gumby comic, which includes (in Issue #2) the spirit of Johnny Cash as a deus ex machina. I talked with the Gumby people during my APE coverage, following up on my conversation with them last year. Do stay tuned for more. Let’s just say that Mr. Burden is quite a loose cannon.
• The Complete Review tracks literary coverage in The New Republic, and the results are not good for fiction: “But what is remarkable and disturbing is that coverage is predominantly — indeed, overwhelmingly — non-fiction focussed. The closest we get to fiction-coverage is now a review of Dave Eggers’ new book — subtitled an ‘Autobiography’, and even more obviously based on facts than most fiction. Is it Sam Tanenhaus’ influence on Wieseltier, rubbing off in all the wrong ways? Or a misguided attempt to be taken more seriously? Or just a brief bad streak?”
• The NBCC has instituted a petition to save literary coverage at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Rather interestingly, my own signature has turned up as #666. But do help to get this in the four digits if you have a few spare minutes.
• Ed Park’s first science fiction column for the Los Angeles Times is now up. And, unlike certain uneducated columnists named Dave on the East Coast, he clearly knows the genre. His first column focuses in part on the underrated Brian Aldiss.
• Garth has provided a very handy walking tour of New York indie bookstores.
• Tod Goldberg has an annotated guide to the L.A. Times Festival of Books.
• Matthew Tiffany interviews Sheila Heti.
• Tao Lin speculates on Cho Seung-Hui.
• The New York Post goes after Michael Chabon.
• Chip McGrath on the Amises.
• Colm Tóibín sure knows how to write an attention-grabbing lede! (via Kenyon Review)
• There’s no mention of the Agony Column, Pinky’s Paperhaus, Nextbook’s interesting offerings, or many other great literary podcasts, but if you’re looking for safe, corporate-subsidized podcasts that take no chances, you can do no better than the list from Open Culture.

• Going Postal‘s Mark Ames offers words on Virginia Tech. (Thanks, Richard!)
• Scott Esposito responds to Cynthia Ozick’s “Literary Entrails.”
• My response to Andrew Keen’s The Cult of the Amateur is now at 2,500 words, and I still have considerably more to address. Rest assured, it will be unleashed before the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.
• I’m very excited to be covering Alternative Press Expo tomorrow, where I will likely be spending far too much money. If you have comics, particularly strange or unusual ones, to talk about, look for the balding guy wandering the Concourse with the microphone. The results will appear, as last year, in a series of forthcoming Segundo podcasts.
• The Sharp Side thinks Lionel Shriver is a crap writer. (via Mark Thwaite)
• If you thought that Will Self’s New York Times walk-a-thon was strange, New York Magazine has upped the fey ante by following Marisha Pessl as she loads up on coffee and cupcakes. It’s good to know that when it comes to literary writers, today’s media will devote considerable column inches not to the books in question, but what they do with their bodies. What next? A 2,000 word article on Zadie Smith and Z.Z. Packer bicycling cross-country?
• Will Peter Carey win another Miles Franklin?
• The 10 greatest novels for children. Any list along these lines that includes Melvin Burgess’s Junk is interesting.
• John Freeman writes: “How, after all, could one review ‘Slaughterhouse Five’ without commenting upon the novel’s deeply humanistic vision? How will critics talk about former NBCC winner Jim Crace’s upcoming apocalyptic novel ‘The Pesthouse’ (which is set in America) without engaging with the very real political undercurrents caused by his flip-flopping of our greatest migration myths (having people trying to leave the country, rather than enter it)? How does one review a book like William T. Vollmann’s ‘Poor People’ without pausing for more than an aside to marvel how infrequently this population winds up in a book at all?” Well, it’s very simple. In Vollmann’s case, you observe the level of scholarship and the degree to which the book succeeds or fails at personal journalism. In the case of the two novels, you remark upon how thematically effective the narrative is. This has very little to do with politics, although I can see how a politically conscious reader might pick up certain connections. China Miéville and I recently had an interesting conversation about how an author’s imagination does, in fact, dwell outside of his political sensibilities. In Miéville’s case, the monsters that Miéville creates have nothing to do with his Marxist leanings.
• Accordingly, since John Freeman seems to see politics in everything, I hereby challenge Mr. Freeman to a public debate in New York on this very issue, where I will duly demonstrate to Mr. Freeman that an open-minded reader can, in fact, read, write, and assess literature irrespective of politics.

• More than you need to know about lightsaber combat. (via Quiddity
• Michelle Richmond observes that examining Cho’s plays is no way to predict his behavior.
• I’ve hit the 25K mark in my novel, but there’s no way in hell that I’m feeling smug about it. No, ma’am. I’m fully aware that the manuscript could sabotage me at an unexpected moment, or the unruly words could stage a revolt upon my consciousness, or the characters might decide that the thoughts and feelings they’ve been nice enough to reveal to me are now off limits. No, humility and a work ethic is the only way to keep going on this. And for all I know, the novel may suck ass.
• There’s a chapbook competition going down at Caketrain.
• *. (via Jeff)
• On Keeping an Open Mind.
• Melanie McFarland has choice words for Larry King.
• 3 AM Magazine posts an excerpt of Tao Lin’s Eeeee Eee Eeee. Having read the Melville House galley, I agree with Tod Goldberg. Tao Lin has a good deal of promise.
• sprezzatura on Eggers: “Dave Eggers the person is all right with me. Dave Eggers the writer is another story. The very distinction, you feel, would exasperate Eggers, since he has staked his creative life on an identification of decent living with good writing. The conviction that good-intentioned people necessarily make good art is what lies behind the hectic innovative blurring of fact and fiction in Eggers’s work, and in the work of the writers he publishes.”
• Steve Hall hits Book Notes.
• A decidedly grumpy portrait of Jane Austen is being auctioned in New York.
• Remember, kids, trenchcoat-clad dogs can often be found scuttling about in disreputable shops. (via Miss Snark)
• More Lethem slash fic at Galleycat.
• Leave it to Derik to find a connection between Lynch’s meditation book and comics.
• Literary Gas discovers Robert Sullivan’s Rats.
• The Guardian‘s Blake Morrison offers thoughts on the blame for violent behavior now being attributed to literary influences.
• Sacco it to me, Jessica!
• Kingsley Amis and Larry David? Huh? (via James Tata)
• Julian Montague’s book about stray shopping carts was named the oddest book by The Bookseller. But I’m kind of curious about the subject myself.
• The return of the LATBR thumbnail, with some legitimate gripes. (Yeah, Ulin, where’s the RSS feed? And what about the pony you promised us?)
• Hillary Clinton’s favorable rating has plummeted to 45% — her lowest since 1993.
• You can hide your connections all you want, Colleen! But once a Cessna pawn, always a Cessna pawn.
• I have given up on Doctor Who and Torchwood. Please advise when they become intelligent.
• Look, every so often, I play Spice Girls songs and dance like a lithe schoolgirl in the book-saturated comfort of my apartment. But even I can tell you that no Spice Girl is worth a six-book deal. (via Bookshelves of Doom)
• Hanif Kureishi’s short story was censored by the BBC. (via Bill Peschel)
• RIP Kitty Carlisle Hart. More from Terry.

• I think “quirky leftist novelist” is a poor summation of Vonnegut’s achievements. I’ve seen better usage of adjectives on OKCupid. (And, apparently, this isn’t the only egregious recontextualizing.)
• Yann Martel is starting a book club, hoping that the Prime Minister will bite. Martel received a “mostly indifferent” reception from the House of Commons when he appeared to champion funding for the Canada Council of Arts. Then again, perhaps the suits were grumbling about extending $170 million in funding for those damn Bohemians who dared to sully the halls of Ottawa. (And compare this with the NEA’s $139.4 million, a budgetary boost that is one good thing you can apply to the Bush administration, although it’s not nearly enough.)
• Michael Ondaatje lists his five most important books.
• Who knew that Pleasanton had a poet laureate? Presumably, we’ll be seeing more sestinas for strip malls and 7-11s.
• AM New York: “The critical savagery could be written off as a prudish reaction to a book that is more than a tad pornographic. Or it could be the result of Mosley’s own missteps — a dirty book, after all, is a very delicate proposition, and not always easy to take seriously.” Or it could be that the United States needs a Bad Sex Award and this is the only way the literary community can take badly written sex scenes to task.
• Joyce Carol Oates on one of my favorite childhood authors, Roald Dahl.
• John Freeman speaks! (via Critical Mass)
• Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s excellent novel, The Wizard of the Crow, has won a California Book Award. (via Mark)
• There’s now a Dickens theme park about to open up in Kent. What I like best about this park is the unique day care facility. You can drop your kids off for the day, where numerous “Fagins” will ensure that your kid is locked in a room and fed nothing but gruel. There, your child will learn the ways of the streets, sneaking out to pick the pockets of unsuspecting tourists and engaging in a progressive education with a teenage instructor named Nancy. This is the kind of approach that instills character in today’s youth. And I must salute these developers for not stooping to cheap Disney-style theatrics, recreating every facet of Dickens without fear of public rebuke. (via Jenny D)
• Jason Silverman on the “sci fi” label. (via Locus)
• Lionel Shriver on Rupert Thomson. (via Rarely Likable)
• BLCKDGRD has an interesting entry comparing the n+1/litblogs war with Don Imus. (via Dan Green)
• In celebration of National Poetry Month, the good Prof Fury digs up a Jack Butler poem.
• The Virginia Tech massacre hits the speculative fiction community.
• There are thirty-two cameras within 200 yards of Orwell’s former home in London. (via Jeff)
• Shakespeare’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre. (via Silliman)
• Ed Norton as Bruce Banner? This does not augur well. (via My Nemesis)
• Sam Raimi helming The Hobbit? Now, that can work. (via Ghost in the Machine)
• Here in San Francisco, MUNI has certainly been sucking. Last night, I waited forty-five minutes for my bus and then gave up and took the N Judah home. The mornings have been almost as bad. Charlie Anders outlines some probable causes. But this is inexcusable.
• Romance enthusiasts vs. Yale students. Get the popcorn.
• Henry Kisor has a novel in the works.
• Nicki Leone’s home library. I particularly like the bookshelves in the drum room. (via Pages Turned)
• Why Richard Flanagan wrote The Unknown Terrorist. (via Happy Antipodean)
• Callie tries to make sense of the Jodi Picoult madness.
• And if I see a flight attendant photo better than this one this year, I’ll certainly be surprised.

• Just one new area to hit: A neologism traditionally anticipates kleptomaniacs, expectant and frenetic. Underlying concerns, kidding, innocent nefarious gambol. Criminally, hearts inside lilt low, pandering in lecherous lulls.
• The Guardian‘s John Lanchester examines the American concern with copyright, and what this means for Google Book Search and publishers. (via Scott)
• Apparently, there’s a Casino Royale play has been commissioned. My fellow Bond fan wonders if there have been any others. Me, I’m wondering what resemblance this has to Bond’s first dramatic appearance on television (which, by the way, also included Peter Lorre).
• Some details have been released on the forthcoming LATBR overhaul (as well as the general newspaper), and I happen to know that the writers being commissioned for the web-only columns are definitely going to be worth your reading time. Alas, I am sworn to secrecy. Not even torture flying in the face of Geneva Conventions will loosen my tongue. Of course, you’ll find out soon enough. What’s also interesting is that all this has caused the aforementioned Bond fan to pledge a revival of the LATBR thumbnail.
• Fuck you, give me my car.
• Attention, all reviewers! Can we put a moratorium to the use of “snookered” in relation to Lionel Shriver’s The Post-Birthday World? I mean, really, this is the best wordplay you can come up with? (See also Mr. Birnbaum’s views on the subject.)
• With all due respect to Jessica, who is a thoughtful litblogger, now that it’s out in the open, the recent Chabon-signed copies of The Yiddish Policemen’s Union sent out to bloggers strike me as a more escalated and egregious version of last year’s Diane Setterfeld controversy. I’m exceedingly grateful that I wasn’t targeted. I can read this book on my own, judging it independently, without having to feel guilty that it may not live up to any kind or personalized proclamations offered by Chabon. I generally set aside any and all handwritten correspondence, press materials, or other ephemera into a file, permit the book to sit for some time (so that I will have forgotten about the note) and read and respond to any and all notes or kind gestures after I’ve finished the book. I do not wish for my opinion to be corrupted or tainted in any way. Even my friends know, when offering any manuscripts or work for me to look at, that I will tell them the truth, and it is because I greatly care about literature (and, particularly, my friends’ creative development; I wish to see them blossom) that I will be honest (sometimes quite hard) yet always encouraging. I’m wondering, however, if some of my fellow litbloggers who received these packages might, in some small way, have been unduly influenced by a personalized bookplate from a high-profile literary author. After all, I don’t believe Chabon is doing this for critics and editors who are requesting review copies (and such a practice would be a no-no on a newspaper). Sure, it’s a clever marketing gimmick. But this preys upon the general bonhomie I’ve observed in the litblogosphere.
• I can’t believe that Jeff is ahead of me on this Vollmann item, but it seems that this reading has been made available by Politics & Prose.
• Warren Ellis: doing his bit for a nice, clean blogosphere.

• Fans of books turned into Hollywood treacle rejoice! Pat Conroy, not to be confused with Pat Barker, is finishing his first novel in more than a decade. The new book is set in Charleston and is more than 700 pages. Take that, John Irving!
• USA Today has selected “25 books that leave a legacy.” Dan Brown, John Gray and Helen Fielding certainly do leave a legacy: the same one carved out by Spandau Ballet, the starved Twiggy look, and Daniel Boone caps.
• Is it too late to bring civility to the Web? What the fuck are you talking about?
• The hallowed silence of libraries appears to be in jeopardy. (via Bookninja)
• The Chron on what all the recent bookstore closings mean.
• Darby observes Stephen Dixon’s retirement from teaching.
• C. Max Magee is interviewed at Litminds.
• Twin Peaks Season Two: “This TV show did not get workshopped.”
• The latest Pulitzer finalist list.
• Callie Miller investigates the Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalists. (via TEV)
• Erin O’Brien calls out Bryan Appleyard.
• Whitney Pastorek has concerns about the Spider-Man 3 soundtrack.
• Bon Jovi won’t be playing BEA? Lance Fensterman, your “regret” is admirable, but I’m sobbing like a BOP-reading bobbysoxer curling beneath a duvet with a gargantuan teddy bear in a 1985 suburban split-level home. Goddam you, Mr. Bon Jovi! Goddam you all to hell! You cruel, CRUEL man! Well, you can forget about any BEA coverage by this dutiful litblogger. If Jon Bon Jovi can’t back up his literary mojo with his musical mojo, then, while indeed I was halfway there, I shall be living (or perhaps covering BEA) on a prayer. Perhaps if someone takes my hand, I’ll make it. I swear.
• Tim Martin talks with Neil Gaiman. (via Jenny D)
• Charlie Anders: “Just three years in, and the new Doctor Who series already seems to be cannibalizing itself.”
• Christopher Walken had fantastically destructive plans for Silicon Valley in 1985.
• The spring issue of ZYZZYVA is now available online for your literary edification.
• I’m with Lev Grossman. Does anyone still care about the Webbies anymore? Particularly since nominees have to pay $245 to enter into the Awards. The Webbies are the Golden Globes of the Internet: its nominees and ceremonies and sycophantic adulations limited to those who can pay for it. It is about as useful to any discerning Web surfer as a fusillade of pop-up ads.
• The Onion: “‘Most E-Mailed’ List Tearing New York Times’ Newsroom Apart.”

• Just what the world needs: a Spandau Ballet reunion. When the apocalypse occurs, humans suffering from radioactive sickness will place tinny and barely functioning crystal radio sets to their ears, shuffling in threadbare Chuck Taylor All Stars along the abandoned strip malls and suburban shrapnel, and susurrating, “Ba ba ba ba ba, I know this, much is true.” Then there will be no hope for Western civilization.
• Updike on Wharton bio.
• Sarah Kerr on Joan Didion. (via Laila)
• The new Rupert Thomson book appears very promising.
• The Ray Davis/Jonathan Lethem letters. (via Matt)
• Roberto Bolano! Roberto Bolano! Roberto Bolano! I’m telling you: four people have mentioned The Savage Detective in the past forty-eight hours. You better watch your ass, Joshua Ferris. A new hot author has arrived. Roberto Bolano! Roberto Bolano! Roberto Bolano! I have no basis for this enthusiasm, but everyone else seems excited and I’ll likely check this book out.
• Finn Harvor’s interesting email exchange with Laura Miller.
• Erin O’Brien is one determined woman.
• The top 500 fonts on the web. (via Messr. Peschel)
• The Internet has made obituaries hot again. Perhaps it’s because Internet users spend most of their time surfing in moribund offices.
• Who’s more evil? Ann Coulter or Don Imus? Tough call.

• April is the cruelest month, which is probably why it’s been designated National Poetry Month, a panacea to that part of the year in which the IRS seizes everybody’s time like a rabid Sumatran rat monkey thirsting for blood. In the spirit of this extreme balance, Ami Greko has been serving up excerpts, audio files and the like at the FSG poetry blog. Dan Wickett has been likewise serving up poems.
• Scott on Proust.
• Gary Indiana has harsh words to say about Clive James. (via This Space)
• In a remarkable departure from Gawker gossip, Choire Sicha ponders the reign of David Remnick.
• “First!”
• RIP Luigi Comencini.
• It seems that Amanda Congdon doesn’t understand that journalism means not shilling for DuPont in infomercials.
• One good reason not to celebrate Easter.
• “Congress is composed of 535 individuals. 238 are lawyers. And you wonder what’s wrong in Congress?” RIP Thomas Hal Phillips. His collaborations with Altman alone, along with his blazing political rants from a car in Nashville, were fantastic.
• A fantastic collection of clips and text on Werner Herzog. (via Quiddity)
• The jagged, dash-strewn syntax of Robert Fisk.
• Social networking and philanthropy taken down to a whole new level. (via Fimoculous)

• Podcasts coming. Hang in there, peeps. I’m juggling as fast as I can and Mr. Segundo is being unruly.
• Who are the new literary slanderers?
• John Freeman has uncovered a strange conspiracy: Granta’s Best Young American Novelists not only live in close proximity, but two live in the same building. Of course, I’ll be revealing my own of Best Writers in the World very soon, confining my longlist to writers who live within a six-block radius. (via TEV)
• Lippmann gets love from Maslin.
• RIP Michael Dibdin.
• C. Max Magee breaks down the IMPAC shortlist.
• Persona Non Data uncovers Borders’ shenanigans.
• Irvine Welsh and Danny Boyle: together again? (via Jeff)
• A tribute sneaker for Joy Division. (via Quiddity)
• The Most Hated Family in America.
• The 18 greatest TV drinkeries (via Largehearted Boy)
• Now here’s something you’ll never see from Tanenhaus: the Telegraph has two different reviews of Toby Litt’s Hospital running on the same day. I’d love to see more American newspapers adopt comparative review coverage like this. Alas, there are only so many column inches to go around.
• Joan of Arc’s relics are a forgery! (via Jenny D)
• Bloomberg: “Barnes & Noble Inc., the world’s largest book retailer, said an internal investigation found `numerous instances” of improperly dated stock options in the past 10 years that may have boosted the grants’ value by $45.5 million.”
• Another day, another Lethem interview.

• Colleen has interesting thoughts on the problems of adult reviewers writing about YA books.
• Laura Miller on Jamestown.
• Dan Green offers a refreshingly level-headed assessment of the n+1/litbloggers dick wars.
• Roger Ebert offers an update on his condition.
• Religions collide: “An Italian film which features Jesus drinking from a can of Coca-Cola will miss its Easter release date after the drinks giant complained.”
• Some folks are worried about the Zell/Tribune deal.
• 100 years of the little magazine. (via Ron Silliman)
• “Drugs are in the water” now in a Gray Lady headline. Progress!
• Chris Abani interviewed at TEV.

• Oscar Villalon raises interesting questions about the lines between fiction and nonfiction.
• Annalee Newitz reviews Optic Nerve #11.
• Megan points to a vanity press scamming bookstores. There’s more info here. Avoid Author Identity Press at all costs.
• Why does the media consistently ignore the Midwest? (via Isak)
• The college prank as viral video.
• Eric Klinenberg has additional ideas about what’s killing newspapers. And it ain’t the Internet.
• David Yezzi on Kingsley Amis’s poetry.
• A lost interview with Douglas Adams.
• Bill Benzon compares the Gabler and Barrier Walt Disney bios.
• Cinetrix needs your help IDing a film.
• The Norwegians mock the Danish language. (via Language Hat)
• There’s some new software available that will allow you to see fellow humans as animals do.
• The Daylight Savings Time change had no impact on power consumption. Way to go, team!

• As the flowers bloom and the foliage returns to trees, there’s one additional sign that spring is upon us. And that’s authors engaging in spousal litigation! First, it was Terry McMillan. And now Walter Mosley is being sued by his ex-wife. None of this, of course, has any bearing on Mosley’s achievements as an author. This item is shamelessly gossipy and is only being included here because I’m hoping to draw some specious correlation between seasonal change and divorce. Perhaps existential possibilities become clearer, once the snow has let up and the time has come to boogie again in the outdoors, sans parka.
• And speaking of seasonal change, Harper’s has been redesigned! (via Rarely Likable)
• Circle of Quiet: “There are days when I wake up and there is a dismal curtain pulled across my soul.” I’ve had days like this too. In such instances, I trick my soul by snapping the shower curtain from its rings, shrouding the plastic raiment over my naked corpus and howling like a housebroken hound at the rising sun. This generally puts me in a more pleasant mood, although I’m pretty sure this doesn’t work for everyone. And thankfully my neighbors haven’t yet complained.
• Patrick Kurp takes issue with Walt Whitman.
• Tricia Sullivan, whose Maul I greatly appreciated and whose books are hard to come by here in the States, has a new book called Sound Mind. Patrick Ness reviewed it not too long ago in The Guardian. Alas, Ms. Sullivan herself has suffered a serious setback. And I include this item to inform Ms. Sullivan that she has at least one devoted reader here in America and that I am very sorry to learn of recent events.
• It appears that Ian McEwan has been faced with a £2,000 fine. His digression? Grabbing some pebbles from a beach while researching On Chesil Beach. I’m relieved to learn that the Dorset authorities, apparently inspired by Singapore police tactics against Michael Fay, are going after the real criminals in our world: distinguished British authors who only wish to write accurately about Dorset. But why stop there? Imprison the jaywalkers for years! Flagellate the litterers! We must beat the heads of all dissenters, major or minor, until they understand that conformity is every citizen’s first duty.
• Will Davis reveals why he must plug his book, but fails to reveal his title in his article. No wonder he’s having difficulty. (via Booksquare)
• Kevin Holtsberry offers his thoughts on Alexander McCall Smith.
• The Bush press team’s recent assault upon Maureen Matthew Dowd is disingenuous. Dowd has a son heading into Iraq and the Bush team says that this is unduly influencing his judgment.
• I agree with Richard. As far as McCarthy is concerned, Mr. Asher’s taste does not resemble mine.
• Anne Fernald ponders how to write a negative review.
• Vulcan & Vishnu. (via Derik)
• Occasional Superheroine braves the exotic territory of Buffy fan fiction.
• I jumped into Rick Klaw’s ongoing tale of anthology editing at Part III, but the whole series is worth a look.
• Harry Potter and Leopard Walk Up to Dragon. Wow. (via The Man Registered Under Current Patronymic Law as Ed #4,361)
• A collection of cyborg birth scenes. (via Quiddity)
• Will organic coffee be a thing of the past?
• Alan Moore on pornography (via Warren Ellis)
• Newly appointed* papa Rory Ewins has launched a new podcast.
• Gingrich’s “ghetto” talk.
• Personally, I like my trains fast and in French. (via MeFi)
• It’s good to see that Charlie Brooker continues to show restraint in his writing.
• Rockslinga: “That the NYT assigned Leon Wieseltier to review Sari Nusseibeh’s new autobiography is somewhat akin to it assigning a meat lover to review a vegetarian cookbook.”
• Yo, Meghan, apples and oranges, apples and oranges. Please try again. Orthofer has more.
• A hearty welcome to the litblogosphere, Dallas Morning News. (via Critical Mass)
• Amy asks if there are any books or authors you can’t stand. I’m a pretty open-minded guy. I’ll read just about anything and I try to give everybody the benefit of the doubt. But I would rather tie my thumbs together with barbed wire than read anything by Chuck Klosterman or Steve Almond.

* — I understand that parents, particularly Australian parents, are appointed in Scotland.

• So after a fusillade of April Fool’s posts and a threatening email sent by Martin Scorsese’s representative, I’m absolutely confident that you’ll be able to trust me with relaying legitimate news here on April 2. So here we go.
• The first issue of Hot Metal Bridge, a suitably naughty title that I approve of, edited by Carolyn Kellogg, has left the building. And you’ll find Michael Martone, Dan Chaon and Alan DeNiro within its pages.
• Could it be? An end to the Left Behind series? I mean, here I was hoping for more excuses to go to hell because, contrary to the Monkees (or, rather, Neil Diamond, who penned the song), I’m not a believer. Will some brave fundamentalist step in to fill Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye’s shoes and get to the bottom of America’s evil in fictive form?
• There’s trouble a-brewing in Salt Lake City. It seems that Mark Spragg’s An Unfinished Life was set to be the One Book, One City choice, only to be rescinded for reasons unknown. Was it censorship or a legitimate kerfuffle? The Salt Lake Tribune has learned that someone complained of “coarse language” spoken by a character in Spragg’s book. Here’s hoping that more “coarse language” will be employed to get to the bottom of this brouhaha.
• Is this Santa Cruz Sentinel story on literary escorts an April Fool’s joke or legitimate journalism reporting upon those great unappreciated escorts?
• The Washington Post‘s Judith S. Gillies has info on the forthcoming PBS American novel documentary.
• Ten famous literary bars: where everybody knows your pen name.
• Tom Cox investigates author websites. (via Jenny D)
• If libraries want to get folks reading, perhaps jugglers are the answer.
• Why the litblogosphere rocks: Kelly Link appeared on The Bat Segundo Show. In that podcast, there was a considerable discussion on whether or not “literary fiction” was as horrid a label as “science fiction.” Eric Rosenfield wasn’t satisfied with some of Link’s responses, but now he’s corresponded with Link directly to set the matter straight.
• If you thought fan fiction was bad, Jason Boog examines fan screenwriting (or is that fan filmmaking?).
• Today in Letters entices literary readers once again with this letter from Fitzgerald to Maxwell Perkins.
• Congratulations to Mr. Orthofer (and his mysterious staff) for eight years of the Complete Review.
• Who knew? Jeff VanderMeer is running for SFWA President with a dubious platform that has one examining the date the announcement was made.
• I believe I linked to this before, but dig Kerouac on The Steve Allen Show. (via Outsider Writers)
• If you don’t make it to the end of the book or you’re feeling dispassionate about a book, there are two reasons: it is the book’s fault or you’re not a book critic. (via Bookninja)
• A.M. Homes: “I think about reviews of the memoir: What’s a negative review of a memoir? ‘Not only is she a lousy writer, her life sucks.'”
• Editor & Publisher: “While newspaper circulation continues to slide, readership is growing, especially with younger readers — when taking online newspaper sites into consideration. According to the latest data from the Newspaper Association of America, newspaper Web sites contributed a 13.7% increase in total newspaper audience for adults 25-to-34.” Again, the newspapers aren’t dying. They’re changing. Younger readers aren’t going away.
• The Book Babes have decided to step away from their Good Housekeeping duties and enter the blogging world.
• Terry Teachout on the Joan Didion theatrical adaptation. Ouch.
• I’ll let the readers decide which death ceremony is more ridiculous: Hunter S. Thompson’s ashes blown from a cannon or James Doohan’s ashes released into space.
• More April Fool’s fun: Major League Baseball’s first Civil Rights Game.
• Michael Glover talks with poet Tony Harrison.
• Tanenhaus enlists Michael Crichton? Surely an April Fool’s joke.
• Speaking of which, it appears that there are astonishing developments at Wired.

• If you thought that Matthew Sharpe’s take on Jamestown was the first, Garth Hallberg reveals the history of Jamestown in contemporary fiction, citing not only one of my favorite contemporary authors, but The Sot-Weed Factor, one of my favorite novels of the past fifty years.
• The San Antonio Express-News interviews Jodi Picoult, only the third woman to have written for Wonder Woman. And if that little tidbit isn’t enough to disturb you, consider Wonder Woman’s origins: William Marston, one of the men who innovated on the polygraph, created the character with his wife. Of course, Marston’s ideas of female empowerment involved Wonder Woman tying her villains with her magic lasso and forcing them to tell the truth. There was an interesting book put out on Wonder Woman’s origins seven years ago.
• Another Banville interview is available at the Oregonian.
• A forthcoming PBS documentary series will examine the American novel. Thankfully, Ken Burns isn’t involved. I’ll never forgive Burns for making Mark Twain’s fascinating life into such a bore a few years ago. (via Orthofer)
• Finally, the Hugo Awards represent women. (via Gwenda)
• Authors, take note of this anecdote: Margaret Atwood really loves you. Who knew?
• How to write a bestseller. (via Bill Peschel)
• The Slate Audio Book Club returns. I haven’t listened to it yet and will only do if I feel compelled to become sad about what passes for populist thinking. But it’s a sunny day here in San Francisco and I’m in a pleasant mood. So I’ll defer such criticisms to my colleagues. It appears that Meghan O’Rourke has had enough. She’s been replaced by John Burnham Schwartz. I’m wondering if this is because O’Rourke, the only one of the pre-Schwartz trio to have any brains, finally came to her senses, demanding an amazing amount of money if she had to endure more of Stephen Metcalf and Katie Roiphe’s banal observations. If this is the case, I don’t blame her. You’d have to ply me with enough scotch to fuel a Jeep Cherokee gas tank (perhaps the same amount that was forcibly poured down Cary Grant’s throat in North by Northwest before James Mason and Martin Landau put him behind the wheel) to get me to talk books on this atavistic level. Perhaps O’Rourke will return in a Slate Audio Book Club (Higher Thinking Edition), which would be a more constructive use of Slate’s resources. In the meantime, listen to the rabble, if you dare.
• Does your English cut the mustard? My own results: Grammar: 100%, Vocabulary: 100%, Punctuation: 80%, Spelling: 100%. But then I have strange ideas about commas. (via Books, Words & Writing)
• The effect of viral video on publishing. (via Kassia)
• Apparently, a few Brits didn’t get the memo that you are not supposed to award John Grisham anything.
• Harry Turtledove fans, take note! The first chapters of an alternate history, co-authored by Turtledove and Bryce Zabel, in which JFK had lived have been posted. (via Lee Goldberg)
• If reading is dying, why are so many Canadians reading? Those ungodly liberal heathens above the 49th parallel are destroying our comfortable illiterate American way of life! They must be stopped at all costs! (via Bookninja)
• Oprah, Rooster; Rooster, Oprah.

• The New York Sun has more news on the forthcoming statue devoted to George Plimpton. As previously reported here, and, yes, this is actually serious, there’s been some controversy on whether to portray Plimpton atop a horse, with his bicycle, or carrying literature and boxing gloves. What the Sun uncovers is that a mere $4,000 of the required $200,000 cost has been raised. It’s clear that Toby Barlow, the man organizing this project, is going to have to do better. Maybe the only way to foot the bill is to have the National Boxing Association sponsor the statue, although I’d hate to see a placard cemented to Plimpton’s sculpted left buttock reading “SPONSORED BY THE NBA.”
• Book review cliche of the week: “Michael Gruber does a bang-up job incorporating it into his breathlessly engaging novel, The Book of Air and Shadows.” Am I the only person who sees the words “bang-up job” and imagines an author participating in an orgy? I promise to all who enlist my services that I will never use the words “bang-up job,” unless it relates to a viable copulative practice, and I shall never use the words “breathlessly engaging,” because if one is denied of oxygen, whether literally or metaphorically, one is not actually engaging with the world. One is, by dint of suffocation, coming close to expiring.
• In Malaysia, Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak is calling for “a nation of readers.” I look to my own nation and ponder whether such noble words can come from any of the politicians who purport to represent my interests.
• I forgot to mention this, although several readers have been kind to point it out to me: it’s Memoir Week at Slate. And you know what that means: apparently, Sean Wilsey getting lot of blow jobs.
• I’m about to crack open A.M. Homes’ The Mistress’ Daughter, as I do with any A.M. Homes volume that finds its way into my hands. Maud offers a few early thoughts. The memoir is expanded from a New Yorker essay that appeared in January 2005.
• If you’re interested in Bay Area literary journal smackdowns, Debbie Yee compares Howard Junker with Wendy Lesser.
• Bella Stander offers a report on the VaBook Festival, short for the less polite VGiniaBook Festival.
• Alas, it appears that an American Idol-style literary show is in the cards. (via Quill and Quire)
• Hey, New Yorker! If you’re going to devote a paragraph to a book as compelling as Lionel Shriver’s The Post-Birthday World, do you think you can offer more than a condescending series of rhetorical questions? You are a magazine of great style and distinction, but I read this paragraph and I wonder if you have Radar or Entertainment Weekly employees on staff. Surely, this was a novel to farm out to Updike, yes? Oh well, at least Updike’s making the rounds on Isaacson’s Einstein bio.
• The staff of The Wire, perturbed by Zodiac‘s indiscretions on the preternatural tidiness of reporter’s desks, are taking photos of Baltimore Sun desks for accuracy. (via Frances Dinkelspiel)
• Philly Inquirer: “For a paper book to work the same way as the Internet book, readers have to sit by their computers and, whenever they come across a bold-faced word or phrase, click over to Walterkirn.com and hit the corresponding link. It’s a disruptive process. If you’re buying a physical book, you’re probably not the kind of person who wants to read long passages of text while sitting at your desk. It would be much easier to read the novel as it was originally presented.”
• Scott compares The Yiddish Policemen’s Union with Roth’s The Plot Against America and Marc Estrin’s Insect Dreams. Scott has some interesting thoughts, but I must ask, without singling anybody out in particular, why so-called literary people fail to account for Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle, Harry Turtledove, or Philip Jose Farmer (to name only three authors) in their comparisons. The hard line seems to be that parallel universes all started with Roth and Chabon. But there were plenty of writers dabbling intelligently in parallel universes well before these two authors-come-lately.

• Jeff Bryant takes me to task about my thoughts on the Typepad Virtual Book Tour. Contrary to our disagreement (and don’t worry: we’ve kissed and made up; it only took five comments, as well as several naughty haikus and illicit JPEGs sent by email), I think Jeff does raise some valid points. I have been in contact with Typepad and will collect all of my thoughts in a future post, which is better reasoned. Give me a few days to do the legwork.
• I meant to mention it last month, but Matthew Tiffany has prepared a list of book-giveaway programs.
• Oprah has done the impossible. She’s coaxed the notoriously interview-shy Cormac McCarthy into an interview by selecting The Road (!!!) for her book club. Personally, I wish she had chosen Against the Day, just to see how resolute Pynchon is in avoiding the human population. Perhaps they could have hired the creeps who made that documentary to lead the camera charge.
• Tom Bissell on JSF. His review begins with a reverse homage to Dale Peck.
• A letter to Anthony Powell from Kingsley Amis.
• Tangerine Muumuu appear to have returned! For how long, who can say? But seven posts in five days is a good sign.
• Even confined to six words, DBC Pierre cannot write. (via Scott)
• Callie is seeking your answers on the author interview.
• At the NBCC, Steve Weinberg is seeking help for his freelancing directory.
• Rosenblum Productions, which owns the TV and movie rights to 1984, is not amused by all the YouTube/Obama shenanigans and are suggesting that Ridley Scott’s 1984 commercial is a derivative work. You know, I’ve read the Orwell book twice and I don’t recall a whole bunch of citizens sitting slackjawed in a public hall, nor do I recall Orwell writing about a jogger throwing a hammer into a screen. What are these folks going to do next? Sue anyone who uses the adjective “Orwellian?” (via TEV)
• France LOVES LOVES LOVES Vikas Swarup. They want to read him. They want to kiss him. They want to do naughty French things to him.
• The Diamondback‘s Clara Morris reveals Russell Banks’ amusing story on having to pick the greatest American novel in the past 25 years for Tanenhaus.
• I’ve been meaning to write up my thoughts on The Host, which I saw several weeks ago with nice people. But in the meantime, don’t miss Anthony Lane’s take.
• Bruce Sterling thinks blogs have ten years left to live. As soon as I get a chance, I’ll add a hand to the top of the right-hand column, where this blog will have lots of plastic surgery, proceed to have lots of sex, and do pretty much anything it wants. In ten years’ time, the orb in the middle of this hand will turning red. I will then gladly turn in this blog to the Sandmen, should the blog not attend Carousel. (via Locus)

• First off, there are two stories pertaining to the Los Angeles Times. After the Martinez fiasco, the Times has decided not to rely upon guest editors. This is a pity, because I was really looking forward to Uwe Boll guest editing the opinion section, offering his thoughts on why film critics are more evil than investment bankers and why violence (specifically boxing) is the only possible response to detractors. And the LATBR has, as previously reported, merged its section with the Sunday opinion section. That’s Sunday instead of Saturday, which means that Sunday morning routines won’t shift nearly as much as loyal Times subscribers feared. There will apparently be more book reviews throughout the paper, as well as heightened Web coverage. So it appears to be more of a general journalistic shift rather than a complete capitulation. And I’ll reserve judgment on all this when I see the results. (First link via Callie)
• Regrettably, due to diabolical sleet and snow plaguing the East Coast a few weeks ago, I did not get to talk to John Banville. But Minnesota Public Radio did. The interviewer, I’m sad to report, appears to have not read the book. But Banville is a gracious subject and, as such, the clip is worth your time. He’s also big on Donald Westlake, which should tell you all you need to know. (via Banville Booster Prime)
• The Arizona Republic talks with Max Barry, who confesses that his current reading is a transcript of a Raiders of the Lost Ark story conference. I’ve heard stories about this meeting between Kasdan, Spielberg and Lucas, but I had no idea that such a transcript existed. A Google search has proved fruitless. So perhaps it’s one of those documents one must locate in the UCLA Film & Television Archive.
• The Guardian‘s Kate Kellaway talks with five first novelists about their labor.
• Also at the Guardian: an interview with A.L. Kennedy. (via Maud)
• Sasha Frere-Jones on Against the Day: “It’s the Columbine teen in him, the voice saying, ‘Everyone is a philistine! Nobody understands REAL writing!’ and urging him on to all his drastic signification and tortured plotting. I take no pleasure in being defeated by Pynchon, and I don’t think he’s full of hot air; I just think we have very different pleasure principles.”
• The problem isn’t that bloggers are stealing from other bloggers, it’s that people have been blogging for several thousand years now, and blogging in earnest for several hundred years, and at this point in time we’ve just run out of original stuff. Our collective unconscious has to recycle old ideas and find new links because we’ve used up all the fresh ones. Basically, it’s summer reruns for the mind. And it all means a better Technorati ranking and plagiarism to boot.
• George Murray is launching a book of poetry! He plans to use an ancient catapult, well-oiled by many of his Bookninja minions, to eject his tome into a magically airborne parabolic arc, where it will land on a random Canadian’s laundry lines and the resultant collision will bring forth protracted litigation that will leave Mr. Murray a broken and financially crippled man. Nevertheless, a big congrats to Mr. Murray.
• Has the time come for a change in Australian literary studies?
• Another excerpt from On Chesil Beach. If you missed the New Yorker excerpt in December, read here. Given that the book is a mere 176 pages, at the current rate of excerpt releases, we should have the entire book online before pub date.
• The good Prof Fury reveals the last time Captain America died.
• Jeffrey Ford on giving blurbs. (via Gwenda)
• Open questions to the Typepad Virtual Book Tour people: Outside of free books, do you remunerate your participants? Or do you still expect them to pay the $4.95/month for the privilege of devoting their blog to book shilling? A form of shilling, I might add, that Six Apart is profiting from. Look, if you’re going to shill, shouldn’t you be disseminating the monies, not just a copy of the book, which any Jane Friday reviewer can request of her own accord? Paid content is one thing, but when there is no clear separation between content and advertising, and when the bloggers, in turn, are still paying their monthly Typepad dues on top of any shilling, it strikes me as unethical and quite exploitative.
• Harlequin needs REAL men!
• Regarding yesterday, I hereby propose that the sentence, “I don’t like Mondays,” be removed from everyday discourse.
• Derik Badman continues his ongoing examination of comics, unfurling a close study of the first page of Jaime Hernandez’s “Files on the Ceiling.” Derik, for the love of comics, please get a book deal. This is the kind of analysis that will help people to take comics seriously. And it’s been thirteen years since Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics. The time is ripe for another consideration.

• Forget NaNoWriMo. Try writing a book in 72 hours.
• Does rare-book dealer Glenn Horowitz look angry with the photographer or comparatively comfortable with his white walls and parquet floors? And what did these photographs tell you about Glenn Horowitz that you couldn’t glean from Rachel Donadio’s article? We’ll be discussing all these questions and more at “Gray Lady Profile Pieces: The Troubling Disparity Between Text and Images” at the Oliver North High School auditorium. The fun starts tonight at 9:00 PM. Be sure to be on time, since the panel will be right after an AA meeting. Unless you also have a drinking problem and you can kill two birds with one stone!
• A hearty congratulations to The Millions, for four years of dutiful literary service.
• And while we’re celebrating birthdays, happy 50th birthday to the Helvetica font! Yes, UK publishers and undergraduates often overuse you. But as sans-serif fonts go, you’re okay in my book. (via Ron Silliman)
• In fact, I’m in a celebratory mood right now. So I’d be remiss if I didn’t also celebrate Leonard Nimoy’s birthday. Forget Shatner. Nimoy was the true actor on the original Star Trek series. Here’s to a few more years of amazing voiceover, kinky photography, and odd music videos.
• It is also the birthday of Richard Dawkins and Erica Jong, both of whom have appeared on The Bat Segundo Show. This was entirely by accident, but inexplicable and quite possibly beneficial patterns often emerge through serendipitous byways. I’m hoping that Our Young, Roving Correspondent will do his best to interview more people who celebrate life on March 26. If you are an author or you know of an author who was born on March 26, please email me and I will be sure to get you on the show in the next few months.
• The McSweeney’s reissue of J. Storer Clouston’s The Lunatic at Large features an introduction by Jonathan Ames! You know the drill: crossorads, devil, personal obligation, life-changing potato salad recipe, inter alia. (via Paul Collins)
• The six freakiest children’s TV rock bands.
• If this isn’t a reason to ride a bicycle, I don’t know what is. I think that this is a beautiful moment of German cinema, and I thank the Internet for bringing it to my attention.
• Dan Green quibbles with George Packer.
• RIP Tanya Reinhart.
• Yes, Mr. Dixon* I too want to give John Barth a huge hug. If I had been at AWP, I would have given John Barth a huge hug. He may have been weary of this. He may have thought me insane or a fanboy to be avoided at all costs. But in Barth’s case, the hug is necessary. I encourage you to read John Barth (particularly, The Sot-Weed Factor), so that you too can feel compelled to give John Barth a huge hug. I think more writers can really use huge hugs. If you know an author who hasn’t been hugged, please hug them. Or promise to hug them. Or if the writer is shy about hugs, hug someone else in the author’s presence and tell the writer, “You see, I would apply this affection to you, but I understand your position about hugs. And I have no wish to invade your personal boundaries. So perhaps you can live vicariously through this third party, who is also deserving of a hug for his own achievements.”
• Erin O’Brien has written about John Sheppard.
• Matthew Tiffany has an excerpt from Murakami’s After Dark.
• I am still recovering from a pleasant weekend. So I direct you to Sarah’s for additional links, while I attempt to grapple with the concept of Monday. It could prove to be my undoing, but I’ll not make any Jim Davis-style jokes about it. No, sir.

* — Me sorry. I was half-asleep, I assure you.

• PW reports that booksellers are “hot for Gore.” It’s quite a phenomenon, really, Gore’s post-2000 election life. At every book signing, booksellers are throwing their bras and panties at Al Gore’s feet (but only when Tipper isn’t around). Al Gore has been asked to sign breasts and pierce pudenda. And the general feeling in the air is that Al Gore is the former presidential candidate to schtupp, if at all possible. Al Gore is the Neil Diamond of the book world. And remember, folks, you heard it from PW first. It’s up in the air whether or not costermongers and accountants will follow suit or, indeed, take off their respective uniforms.
• Dan Wickett has the skinny on the Ann Arbor Book Festival Writers’ Conference.
• The creation of a bookstore window display. (via Levi)
• Interesting submission stats from Miss Snark. I remember reading an interview long ago (we’re talking pre-Internet) with Richard Ford in which he spent an entire day perfecting his query letter for A Piece of My Heart. Some things really never change. (via The Publishing Spot)
• Tangerine Houdini!
• Part three to come. It’s one of those days.

• Variety reports that the film adaptation of Revolutionary Road is all systems go. But it comes with a price. Sam Mendes’ nepotism aside, Kate Winslet makes sense as April, but Leonardo DiCaprio as Frank Wheeler? Good Christ, Richard Yates must be spinning in his grave. Yates’ fiction was written with great subtlety and, while Leo is perfectly acceptable in melodramatic roles, even accounting for What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?, I simply can’t see him conveying the careful behavioral nuances of being stalled at thirty.
• Even if an author is Jane Austen has been deemed “too unattractive.” (via Books, Inq.)
• Kurt Vonnegut’s eight rules for writing fiction.
• Bruce Lee’s one inch punch explained.
• “An idle man is a dangerous man.” (via Happy Antipodean)
• For copyright and intellectual property fiends, the UK’s Court of Appeals has offered an interesting ruling in relation to video games. General ideas and structures behind games and programs can be absconded, so long as the source code and graphics are not.
• Another roundup later.

• Ian McEwan may be taking a page out of Margaret Atwood’s playbook. McEwan has decided to forego touring for On Chesil Beach, replacing his bookstore appearances with a 23 minute film. But here’s the question: do people really want to go to a bookstore to see a film of an author? Particularly if they can download the film off the Internet? I agree that the current idea of an author reading is flawed and that some authors simply lack the pizazz to work a room. But if bookstores want to keep on thriving and have their customers return, there’s no substitute for live author appearances, where readers can ask questions and authors can personally inscribe their books, as odious as the task might be for the author. (via Bookdwarf)
• I agree with Bill Peschel. Lynne Scanlon is really missing the point about the Vagina Monologues debacle. Besides, what were these girls supposed to do? Tell the principal that they would, in fact, say the word “vagina” and then have the show canceled?
• It’s a sad world indeed when The Secret Life of Bees replaces The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
• Maud Newton chooses between Kate Atkinson and Richard Ford. All I have to say is: Ouch.
• Forget the Tournament of Books. How about the Tournament of Reading Reports? Who will be the first to report of John Banville’s Los Angeles appearance? Mark Sarvas or Callie Miller? There’s no rooster here to be had, but certainly there’s a booster.
• The Independent‘s Susi Feay investigates Muriel Gray’s recent claim that today’s female writers lack imagination.
• The CliffsNotes dilemma spelled out in comic strip allegory. Years ago, I had something close to this happen to me, although I was the one to walk out. (via The Millions)
• The Raw Shark Texts author Steven Hall muses on the number 31.
• Terry McMillan has filed a $40 million lawsuit against her former husband, “now a hair stylist in a Danville salon.” Who knew that hair stylists had publicists?
• Fugitive novelist Cesare Battisti has been arrested in Italy.
• New York Magazine interviews LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy.
• I didn’t realize this, but Eric Bogosian’s Talk Radio has been revived, with Liev Schreiber taking on Bogosian’s role.
• Salman Rushdie: “not afraid to laugh.” Well, good for him. I didn’t realize there were authors out there who were cowering in fear from humor and I’m glad Rushdie has sought the appropriate therapy to learn how to laugh again. (via Orthofer)
• Russell Crowe is making his directorial debut with a surf film. The story involves a bunch of needlessly angry surfers who scream at hotel clerks and beat the shit out of any detractors, when they aren’t busy throwing telephones into the ocean.
• I find it amazing that there is only one gay and lesbian-based bookstore in the whole UK. But authors are now rallying to save it.
• It appears that the folks at Gawker have now seen fit to emerge from their collective anonymity and sign their posts. Whether this is a testament to future accountability or an effort by Denton to keep track of his writing slaves extended family is anyone’s guess.

[UPDATE: Mark and Callie‘s respective accounts of the Los Angeles Banville reading are now up. Mark wins out for timeliness, beating Callie’s post by a mere eleven minutes. But eleven minutes! That’s what I call a close race. I certainly hope that Mark and Callie meet at some point. I can dutifully attest that Mark Sarvas does not bite people, although there are unconfirmed reports of Mark noshing on gourmet roadkill.]

[UPDATE 2: And it turns out that John Fox was at the Banville reading too! None of these three have met each other. This is criminal! All this makes me want to fly down to Los Angeles, get these three together in the same room, and not allow anyone to leave until at least twenty minutes of friendly conversation has gone down!]

• It’s been widely linked elsewhere, but it’s certainly worth your time: Chris Ware animates a segment for the forthcoming televisual version of This American Life.
• Mark Sarvas rather predictably dismisses Firmin, because “in the final analysis, he’s a rat and his plight never feels real because rats don’t think, talk, or write books!” (Emphasis in original.) Mark is, of course, entitled to his opinion, but as I argued back in October, who says that Firmin is a rat? Even if we accept Firmin’s rodent form as literal, I must ask: Do we discount Maus because it involves rats? Do we discount Orwell’s Animal Farm because the animals talk? Do we discount Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy because all the humans are accompanied by talking animals? If one can willingly accept magical realism (and I fully confess my prejudicial stance against magical realism), then certainly one can accept talking animals and other fantastical elements, without outright dismissing a book because of these elements. Also, as Jessica Stockton observes, Firmin doesn’t talk.
• I have repeatedly suggested here, contrary to my previous declarations, that one should not underestimate the cultural developments in Ohio. Case in point: a brouhaha between low culture and high culture involving The Dukes of Hazzard, the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, and blacklisting. Apparently, Dukes of Hazzard stars John Schneider and Tom Wopat had planned a musical program. The program was then canceled, ostensibly because some people complained that the trashy television show was “racist and offensive.” This lead Ben Jones, who played Cooter on Dukes and later became a Georgia Congressman (with details like these, one expects an elaborate parlor drama adaptation), to declare that Wopat and Schneider were “blacklisted.” I think if you’re going to complain about Schneider and Wopat, you should probably point out that they aren’t exactly today’s answer to Enrico Caruso and Mario Lanza. But to consider previous work not as singers, but as actors, strikes me as unreasonable. It’s not as if Wopat and Schneider planned a Dukes of Hazzard revival here. (via Ron Silliman)
• It is with great regret, through no fault of anyone, that East Coast weather caused John Banville’s flight to be delayed and, thus, an in-depth Segundo interview to be canceled, but thankfully, the AP’s Regis Behe fared better, talking with him about Christine Falls. Fortunately, Banville made it out to Los Angeles and, if you’re in town (Callie?), you can catch him tonight at the Central Library Mark Taper Auditorium. I found Christine Falls to be an interesting experiment, a case of a talented writer attempting to tackle mystery with mixed results, but I was particularly taken with the structure and the imagery of The Sea. In fact, The Sea actually helped me to solve a problem in my novel. So while I quibble with Mr. Sarvas over Firmin, I can certainly share, in part, his appreciation for John Banville.
• The evolution of male body posture. (via Kenyon Review)
• The ever-thoughtful Justine Larbalestier, whose Magic and Madness trilogy beckons my reading involvement, asks whether authors prefer great editing or great publicity.
• Dan Wickett has revealed the first Dzanc Books cover.
• Should one discuss books one hasn’t read? (via Scott)
• RIP Rita Joe. (via Bookninja)
• Brian Sawyer has some exceedingly helpful bookbinding links.
• It seems that publishers are now optimizing their content for browsers.
• Does the online universe imperil the tool of narrative? (via Big Bad Book Blog)
• Some Francis Bacon paintings that were set to be thrown away have been salvaged and are now going up for auction.
• And maybe this will help the folks in Cincinnati settle the Wopat and Schneider question: perhaps the real concern is hurled underwear.

[UPDATE: Within an hour of posting this roundup, I was emailed by John Schneider’s publicist. (Christ, do they Technorati all day or something?) Since the email contained the preposterous sentence, “These are exciting days for Schneider,” I chose to disregard it. But I should note for the public record that I am neither for nor against John Schneider and that writing about John Schneider does not necessarily make me a Schneider shill.]

• Maud Newton is looking for your questions in what appears to be a very interesting conversation between Colson Whitehead and Calvin Baker on “branding & freedom in the market economy.”
• Levi Asher offers a report on the Kevin Kline production of King Lear.
• M. John Harrison: “So what is the function of the novelist ? Not to fellate the audience in the hope of delivering a more acceptable product.”
• The Independent conducts a five-minute interview with Edward Rutherfurd. Hmm, reminds me of Mr. Sarvas’ format.
• Dina Horwedel observes that despite Hispanic literature’s popularity, it’s not being incorporated very efficiently in high schools and college curriculums.
• Here’s an update on the Marshall Public Library imbroglio: Fun Home and Blankets will remain on the shelves. (via Is listening to writers discuss their works high-minded? (via Bookninja)
• Tod Goldberg unearths some misogynistic book promotion. (via Bill Peschel)
• Where is our Orwell? Where is our Dickens? Henry Porter seems to think that novelists who are indicting government and society are in short supply these days. It’s a fair enough charge, but what he doesn’t realize is that any time Harold Pinter opens his mouth, thanks to a secret and well-funded organization that I cannot name, a memo is sent to all English language novelists reminding them of the pointlessness of novelists preaching to the converted and suggesting that these sorts of predictable fulminations are best addressed through the prism of fiction.
• Those hoping to read a confessional book written by Madonna’s nanny will be disappointed by this recent news. The book’s been canceled by Crown, but whether this book has been muzzled by Madge’s litigious fervor is anyone’s guess.
• A “grown-up” music festival is being planned. We’ll have none of your drinking or your pot smoking or your Bic lighter waving, thank you very much. This is serious business. You will sit there and listen to Bjork and you shall not cheer! There shall be no audience participation, save silence! And the only food served in the booths will be saltine crackers and lima beans.
• In celebration of Free Comic Book Day, Fantagraphics will be offering a Peanuts comic book for free. There will be no football pulled on this offer, which you can take up at your local comic book store on May 5.
• Never underestimate Ohio journalists. A scab working for the Toledo Blade found his car scorched, with a cinder block thrown through the window.
• Also at Editor and Publisher, it appears that Helen Thomas has her front seat again in the White House press room. Or does she? A White House memo reveals, “The White House, however, will continue to determine seating assignments for all presidential news conferences.” I’m wondering if this is intended as a quid pro quo of sorts.
• I missed Julia Klein’s interesting take on Finn in this Sunday’s L.A. Times, but Klein’s review also offers an interesting summation of works that turn minor literary characters into starring roles. (Thanks, Quill and Quire, for the reminder!)
• Ron Silliman offers a lengthy take on the late Ed Dorn.
• Paul Collins unearths a unique comic book cover from 1944.