• Adrienne Martini on Octavia Butler. (via Bookslut)
• Callie Miller offers a poetry appreciation week. I’m hoping to find time to contribute something, but do feel free to participate.
• Dan Green serves up a fiction blog.
• A.I. Bezzerides, who wrote the great overlooked film noir Thieves’ Highway (thankfully now available through Criterion after many years of being unavailable in any video format), has passed away.
• HarperCollins has doled out a shitload of money for Vikram Chandra’s Sacred Games. A million dollar advance and a $300,000 marketing budget. Is there any way that this 916-page epic will make its money back?
• Jeffrey Archer has written the Gospel according to Judas. I suspect this book came quite naturally to Archer.
• Goodbye Sobol. Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.
• Ed Park has photos of Brazilian book racks.
• Need something that will have you clamoring for a cold shower? Screech’s Sex Tape Follies is a good start.
• Tod Goldberg finds out what happens to publicists with cross-pollinating interests.
• Rake on “fatherhood writing”: “Somehow, we’re suffering from a spate of fellows who’ve struggled to the conclusion that parenthood is a mixed blessing, yet are dumb enough to think that this isn’t common knowledge, and, unfortunately, maintain just enough intelligence and dexterity to bang away at a computer keyboard. This is a highly dangerous mixture of persistent and stupid, found generally in drug mules, sportswriters at mid-market newspapers, traders of Dave Matthews Band live boots, and dudes who hang barbells from their junk in-between acts at Ozzfest.”
• Terry Teachout has some helpful hints for publicists on how to get reviewed.
• Now we’ll never know exactly how and where to score Scooby snacks, or precisely what substances these delicacies were laced with. Only Iwao Takamoto knew the answer.
• Drawn & Quarterly will publish Lynda Barry’s first new book since 2002.
• A Swedish librarian fashion show? I…I…mah…my…ergh…uh…is there a librarian foreign exchange in place? (via Bookshelves of Doom)
• Heh. (via Bookninja)
• After 16 years in San Francisco, Keith Knight’s going Hollywood.
• Well, this new blog discovered by Linda gets my vote for coolest new litblog title.
• The first few minutes of Idiocracy. (via The Creekside Review)
• William Boyd’s Restless has won the Whitbread Costa.
• Orhan Pamuk was queen editor for a day for a Turkish newspaper, devoting the coverage to oppressed artists. (via Isak)
• George Saunders solicits your help. (via Maud)
• John Leonard on Tillie Olsen. (via The Mumpsimus)

• Salon’s Allen Barra believes that Point to Point Navigation is merely a irrelevant rehash of old ideas.
• Terrible news from Philadelphia: anywhere between 68 to 71 staffers have been laid off from the Inquirer, possibly more. To my knowledge, the layoff list has not been made public yet. Hang in there, Frank and do stop by at Books Inq. to wish the hard-working Books team some well-deserved support. Given the circumstances, I hope everyone emerges out of this as unscathed as possible.
• Need to step behind the beady curtain and get your Gatsby fix? Yardley and Sarvas are your well-hung men.
• For those who have expressed horror that Bat Segundo would get involved with Nina Hartley, rest assured that we’ll be classing up the joint in a few days. Keep watching the airwaves.
• Justine Larbelestier on paragraphs.
• Amerdeep Singh examines the effects of shifting the MLA to the first week of January.
• The band Seven Seconds of Love is upset at Coca-Cola for pilfering their dance moves for a commercial.
• RIP Philippa Pearce.
• RIP Tillie Olsen. The Bluestalking Reader has more.
• Micawber Books, the Princeton bookstore, has closed. The owner, Logan Fox is upset that movies and television shows have replaced books as cultural cocktail party banter.
• One would presume that the Judith Regan story was as dead as the dodo, but not for Kimberly Maul, who, dredging for desperate controversy, reports that a temp claims Regan didn’t make the crazed anti-Semitic remarks on the phone. Right. Because we all know that temps are the most indispensable and highly regarded employees in the office. And we all know that this temp followed Regan everywhere during her one week of employment. Come on, Ms. Maul, it ain’t that slow a news day.
• Jerome Weeks responds to recent arts coverage changes at the Dallas Morning News, observing, “The problem for newspaper arts coverage has little to do with editors’ fears of cultural ignorance or what readers want. The problem has to do with the fact that local arts (and book publishing) do not generate much ad revenue. That might explain why the only critic that the DaMN is currently replacing with someone actually in town is — the restaurant critic. Restaurants provide ad revenue.” I’m not sure if I entirely buy this. Are we to assume that arts coverage readers don’t eat or purchase products aside from books?
• Kassia Krozser on book price fluctuations.
• 50 Cent has set himself a new goal: “the top of the literary world.” So does this mean that we’ll see an alliance between Nas, Jadakiss and Norman Mailer? We haven’t seen a literary feud for a while and I suspect that 50 might be just the man to get one going again, gangsta style.
• Tibor Fischer on Hannibal Rising.
• Vendela Vida is A-List? Who knew?
• Don’t miss Darby Dixon’s “Books I Failed to Read in 2006.”
• The Jack Vance Treasury!

• The 50 Greatest Cartoons, with video. (via Kevin Smokler)
• The Times: “Educated people are not supposed to believe in ghosts. This has done nothing to diminish their popularity, at least in fiction.” (via Kenyon Review)
• Children of Men: the book vs. the film.
• The next generation’s vocabulary is, like, diminishing. (via Maud)
• The San Francisco Chronicle offers a list of 2006 deaths, with many authors and journalists. Conspicuously absent are the great talents Octavia Butler and Gilbert Sorrentino, demonstrating that you can win a MacArthur Genius Grant or radically influence experimental fiction and still not earn so much as a sentence from the mainstream media.
• CNN: “A giant ice shelf the size of 11,000 football fields has snapped free from Canada’s Arctic, scientists said.” No global warming, eh? (via Michelle Richmond)
• Israeli literary critic Gershon Shaked has died.
• Reports of the American movie’s death have been greatly exaggerated.
• The excellent 10 Zen Monkeys serves up an overview on world sex laws.
• This week in ridiculous book trailers: Hannibal Rising. (via Ghost in the Machine)
• Kitchen Sink Magazine is folding. (via Warren Ellis)
• Historical Fiction for Hipsters. (via Largehearted Boy)
• Mr. Ewins is going crazy with the top ten lists.
• Reuters’ Mark Porter investigates the ongoing demise of the indie bookstore.
• Print aesthetic pleasantries from Fade Theory.
• Contributors to the New Yorker Winter Fiction issue share their fave books of 2006. Ian McEwan’s faves are particularly interesting.
• “Jack”: “the name of an instrument that supplies the place of a boy.” Well, that’s being a bit coy about a euphemism, Webster.
• Hitch on Gerald Ford.
• A tourist map of Gotham City.
• From earlier this year: Lethem on James Brown. (via Telescreen
• Technorati vs. Google Book Search.
• Well, I, for one, cannot be bribed or have my opinion purchased. Absolutely no price.

• Justine Larbaleister has some good suggestions for oversensitive writers.
• Time Out London lists the top ten children’s books of 2006.
• This morning, when I woke up and heard that Gerald Ford had died and the wind was pattering against my window like something out of a TV disaster movie done on the cheap, I had to call my girlfriend to determine if I was, in fact, operating in reality and not living out some phantasmagorical dream. For several hours, I believed this. But now that I’ve read this item about an “edgy parenting magazine,” I must conclude that either today is preternaturally strange or I am not, in fact, now in the real world. If there’s a doctor out there who might be able to take my pulse during my lunch hour, please let me know.
• Apparently, literary criticism is “cognitive freedom.” If this is the case, I will write my next review assignment in Edward Lear-style nonsense verse and tell my editor that it was because Geoffrey Galt Harpham told me so.
• Jay McInerney is apparently “a boldface name.” Whether this is because McInerney is fond of repeated emphasis of his oenophilia or because his craggy and embarrassing visage still insists that he’s the center of the universe is anybody’s guess.
• Not the “nudie calendar” you’re thinking.
• Schezee Zadi asks the world to remember Urdu poet Perveen Shakir.
• John Heath-Stubbs, the poet who translated the only literary work by a woman from ancient Rome to English, has passed away.
• The Los Angeles Times‘ Josh Getlin suggests that works from Debra Ginsberg and Bridie Clark might represent the next Devil Wears Prada. So let me get this straight: Prada is the new litmus test for confessional fiction? What of Thomas Wolfe or Sinclair Lewis? They both came decades before Lauren Weisberger and it’s safe to say that they both wrote Weisberger under the table. Hell, in Lewis’s case, he wrote much of his fiction while he was under the table.
• The Independent‘s DJ Taylor offers a second look at Richard Bradford’s The Novel Now. You can check out an excerpt of Bradford’s book here.
• Does Pynchon fill in enough literary gaps?
• Otto Penzler: “This is a good time of year to allow yourself to hate someone.” No wonder he’s such a bitter assclown. How does it work for Otto, I wonder? If he hugs you after you give him a gift, does he tear a hunk of meat from your shoulder with his teeth and then stab you in the chest multiple times with an icepick? (via The Dizzies)
• I agree with Tayari. Dreamgirls is worth your time.
• McClatchy has sold off the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.
• Yet a third layout of David Foster Wallace’s “Host” has made its way onto the Columbia University Press site. It’s an improvement upon the version that appeared in Consider the Lobster, but it still pales in comparison to the color-coded version that ultimately appeared in the Atlantic. But I suspect that CUP’s version is a bit easier on the eyes for those who remain bemused. (via Beatrice)

• Michael Gove digs up the obligatory article about David Lodge’s “Humiliation,” the game whereby each participant admits what they haven’t read. He confesses that he hadn’t read Stephen King until he read Lisey’s Story, which he describes as “more painful for me than being trapped alone in one of the pods of the London Eye with a flatulent Appalachian mountain man anxious to re-enact a scene from Deliverance above the flowing waters of the Thames.” I didn’t care for Lisey either, but I don’t know if it’s fair to castigate a writer, particularly a prolific one, for a misfire.
• Fascinating details on George Bernard Shaw’s last will and testament.
• Anne Petty: “A case in point is the third Harry Potter film directed by Alfonso Cuarón. In that film, the familiar setting for Hogwarts was replaced by an incredibly precipitous landscape, especially the approach and immediate surroundings of Hagrid’s hut, and the interior for the school we thought we knew so well emerged in highly disorienting camera angles with ”House of Usher” look and feel. The effect was so distracting that I found it hard to lose myself in the flow of events on the screen.” Just keep ordering those lima beans from the menu, Anne. I hear they go great with castor oil. Leave the appreciation (and concomitant commentary) of cultural innovation to those willing to swim in the deep end or, better yet, those who still have a pulse.
• Christ, some madman has released The Match Game to DVD. And it’s a four-disc collection no doubt full of the grand sleaze I didn’t come to appreciate (although I’m not sure if “appreciate” is the word) until decades later.
• Alas, the Christmas season can’t save indie bookstores.
• More FBI documents on John Lennon have been released.
• 2006: the coldest year in the last five years. (via Books Inq.)
• Chasing Ray takes umbrage with the Underrated Writers Project, noting that YA authors were not present. I fully confess that I’m quite in the dark on YA titles, but certainly not adverse to them. If anybody has some good YA author recommendations, do list them here.
• Call me a skeptic, but am I the only one who sees through the blatant marketing of offering John Hodgman’s book on iTunes for free? You’ll get no link from me. No download either. Of course, if it came from a conduit outside iTunes, that might be another story.
• Who knew that Jason Boog was a closet boxer who liked to knock the wind out of unfairly matched opponents who criticized his work?
• The sublime Mr. Parr regularly underestimates himself. To wit: this very helpful guide to New York indie bookstores, quietly updated. (via The Written Nerd)
• William Frith: Victorian hypocrite?
• “What gives the school the right to decide when children should know the truth about such a harmless matter when knowing the truth does take away that little bit of magic?” What gives this mother the assumption that her kid still won’t believe in Santa, despite all claims to the contrary? (via Bryan Appleyard)
• Various notables offer thoughts on Woody Allen’s movies. (via Quiet Bubble)
• Orhan Pamuk’s Nobel lecture.

• Conflicts of interest? Reviewing a friend’s book? That’s small-time reviewing ethics compared to Kristian Lundberg, who fabricated a review for a book that was never completed. (via TEV)
• Bookstores may be dancing a precarious waltz in New York and San Francisco, but at least there’s sign of a bookstore comeback in Kashmir.
• “In every case, the expectations by faculty of what they believe college freshmen should have read in high school exceeds the reality of what they’ve actually read.” So college freshmen aren’t reading. On the plus side, they’re more likely to eat and drink your ass under the table and fuck each other like rabbits (some 80% of them). I propose a nationally subsidized “Books for Sex” program, whereby the number of books read correllates with the number of sexual partners a college freshman is permitted. After all, if we’re so busy tracking who buys Sudafed (and when), the least we can do is track their sex and reading habits too. Consider this a more benign form of Orwell. Orwell had his Vestal Virgins. 21st century America has CRIS (Carnal Reading Incentive Squad)!
• Pottery containing literary messages have been found in northwest Iran. One of the shards, all dating around 3,000 BC, contained the following message: “Our homeland’s going to be royally fucked in about 5,000 years.” There was also a shard containing a list of clothes to be picked up at Great Zab Cleaners, a river-side launderer. (It turns out that the first dry cleaner was Iranian.)
• Michael Gartner writes, “There is no better American essayist than E.B. White. Period. Some writers can write well but not think clearly. Some writers can think clearly but not write well. Some can do neither. White did both.” Meanwhile, some book critics aren’t nearly as succinct as they think they are. Couldn’t Gartner have simply written “E.B. WHITE IS THE SHIT, MOTHERFUCKERS!” or are such declarations of this ilk, which cut to the chase in one sentence iinstead of five, not permitted in newspapers?
• The Yemen Times is under the silly illusion that dictatorial op-ed pieces are the way to get people reading and understanding. Ever hear of free will?
• The current literary Jonathans cabal shouldn’t get too comfortable. Another Jonathan has been honored by the French.
• Murakami believes that The Great Gasby is “the most important novel in my life.”
• Carolyn Kellogg lists the top ten things she misses about L.A.
• Ursula K. Le Guin on the importance of fantasy.
• Jeff on Barbera’s death.
• Jeffrey Trachtenberg on the new $0 advance. (via Maud)

• That gossipy minx Kitty Kelley is at it again: this time, locking Oprah Winfrey into her crosshairs.
• If you despise those living-room size theatres in the multiplex, there’s some new signs that the trend may be reversing. (via Kevin Smokler)
• Apparently, the men who robbed novelist Ngugi wa Thoing’o have been sentenced to hang.
• John Freeman, taking his cue from the Stephen Lyons double–dipping playbook, offers the rest of his Richard Powers interview at The Independent.
• Okay, Pessl haters. It appears that the NYTBR wasn’t the only one to put Special Topics in Calamity Physics on their Top 10 list. Really, this Pessl thing must be talked about! Is she still 27? What is she doing this precise second? Forget the mammoth SIZE of the book. Let us gaze upon navels and pride ourselves on being the baddest literary motherfuckers on the planet!
• David Church on the American horror film in the ’90’s. (via The Reading Experience)
• Tayari offers a tasty-looking recipe for red velvet cake!
• Dana Gioia has been confirmed as NEA chairman for the next four years. (via Silliman)
• Have yourself a buy nothing Xmas.
• Mental Multivitamin responds to the entreaty “Be creative!”
• Stephen King’s top ten books of 2006.
• But here’s a better list from Scott.
• The best headline I’ve read this week. Even so, Mr. Hogan, you were on Segundo first! Don’t let that success go to your head. This is Judith Regan we’re talking about here.
• Holy shit! Connie Willis fans rejoice, but save up your cash! (via Chasing Ray)
• The public doesn’t think much of journalists’ current ethics.
• Ways of preening? John Berger is now calling for a cultural boycott of Israel.
• Douglas Dutton on how to suggest books. (via Big Bad Book)
• What Dan Wickett is looking forward to in 2007.

• There are two schools of getting babies to sleep: the Ayn Rand “let them cry to their hearts’ content” doctrine and subscribing to the soothing touchy-feely Oprah approach. As it turns out, both schools are correct. So it seems when it comes to babies at least, conservatives and liberals can find a common ground. Of course, since many politicians are enfants terrible, at least when judged against the manner the average population works, it remains to be seen whether the approaching session of Congress will come to similar accord in other matters. (via Amardeep Singh)
• Michael Richards, Andy Dick, and now Rosie O’Donnell. I’m wondering what’s more offensive: the lousy attempts at humor or the political correctness that demands incessant apologies.
• Slow news day? Okay. World’s tallest man saves dolphin. So long and thanks for all the inch. (via The Beat)
• Taking pages from the Bookslut and Edrants playbook, Bookburger lists the best and worst book covers of 2006.
• Jenny D has a delightful 2006 books list.
• Over at The Washington Post, Richard Ford participated in an online chat. Even Ford fanboy Tod Goldberg gets name-checked. But I liked Ford’s answer to the wholly ridiculous question “Why do you write?” (via The Millions)
• Who knew that science fiction was all about whether or not the reader is an attractive woman? Apparently, an assclown named Razib, perhaps pining for the gender gap so prominent during the Eisenhower administration, was shocked (shocked!) that “a very attractive hostess” in a wine bar had read Hyperion and Snow Crash. If we are to use the terms of Razib’s argument, one must then ask why a brown-skinned man like Razib was doing in a wine bar, clearly the exclusive province of Caucasians! I know this, because Ann Coulter told me that racist antebellum times represented “a chivalric, honor-based culture that was driven down by the brute force of crass Yankee capitalism.” I therefore must believe her when she says that this is so! And we all know that the Confederacy meant rewarding the true winner: the glorious white male! So what business does Razib have drinking wine among the elite? It lacks honor and chivalry and respect for the white man. I’m shocked (shocked!) that any brown-skinned man would be doing this. Am I a freak to think this is freaky? I haven’t had a sip of wine, so it isn’t the alcohol. Guess it has to be my specious and outdated logic! (via Gwenda)

[UPDATE: Razib, lacking any sense of irony, has responded, calling me a “white racist” and adding, “I suppose Ed’s point was that stereotyping is pernicious, but I would contend that inaccurate stereotyping is especially pernicious, and I can’t believe that the snippet above reflects anything but rhetoric.” I figured the Ann Coulter reference would say it all, but Razib clearly hasn’t considered that I was actually satirizing inaccurate stereotyping: the same inaccurate stereotyping that Razib himself is guilty of.]

• Who knew that bookstores were the place for exclusive pretzels? (via Jennifer Howard, who has been turning in some fine guest blogging at Bookslut this week)
• When writing a literary biography, be sure to befriend your subject’s ex-spouses.
• Romancing the Tome has some hot pics of The Golden Age, the sequel 1998’s amazing film Elizabeth. The sequel, thankfully, will also be written by Michael Hirst and directed by Shekhar Kapur. And, of course, it’s Blanchettlicious*, with Clive Owen appearing as Sir Walter Raleigh.
• I never thought I’d see the day when Michiko Kakutani was compared with Darth Vader. I’m guessing that nutty Brockman guy is steeling himself up for a holiday party.
• The Washington Post‘s Jabari Asim argues that what McEwan did is no less different from LL Cool J sampling James Brown.
• C. Max Magee asked me to particpate in his impressive “A Year in Reading” project and my contribution can be found here. My top ten list for 2006 will appear after Xmas.
• The Written Nerd writes about the current state of NYC bookstores. Prognosis: nicht so guht.
• Is literary paradise in Australia lost? (via MAO)
• Sarah offers some further speculation on Bertelsmann’s precarious financial status. An $11.2 billion debt. I’d hate to be on the receiving end of that dunning. Even if Random House isn’t purchased by Google, I’m wondering who else but Google would be willing to take a hit with that kind of debt, if Bertlesmann decides to shop off Random House.
• I wish I could go to this, but I’ll be in San Francisco. MetaxuCafe is having a gathering on December 19. Check it out if you’re in New York.
• 10 Zen Monkeys looks into the Amanda Congdon-ABC partnership.

* — It is my hope to introduce “Blanchettlicious” into common vernacular. The term signifies someone “exuding smart and sexy” and I’m hoping it can replace such general monosyllabic terms such as “hot” that fail to do justice to the sublime complexities of women.

• David Lynch is launching his own coffee. (via Matthew Tiffany)
• Mr. Asher also doesn’t think too highly of Donadio’s most recent article, suggesting that Donadio “is just writing like Snoopy in his ‘dark and stormy night’ mode.” I agree with him that Ozick’s article is well worth your time.
• Jack Butler, whose Jujitsu for Christ you must check out (thank you kindly, Rake and Carrie), offers this tribute to Don Harrington. Word on the street is that Butler’s got another novel in the works, but I haven’t yet had the opportunity to confirm this info. (via Pretty Fakes)
• It seems that Mel the Anti-Semite is ripping off Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. (via Gwenda)
• Salon lists the best debuts of 2006. The big question: Will the Pessl haters, who have been showing up at Mark’s place in droves, now call for Laura Miller’s head? Love or hate Special Topics, I fail to understand the knee-jerk dismissals associated with this book. Many literary folks, including Meghan O’Rourke, seem more content to resort to generalizations (Highly self-conscious prose? What writer doesn’t write self-consciously?), hating this book without citing specific examples. Yet to appear from these apparent detractors: detailed or level-headed assessments on why Marisha Pessl is apparently this year’s literary Beezelbub. So the book was written by a hot young talent and received a lucrative advance. So the book was selected by the NYTBR as one of the Top 10 Books of the Year. I don’t see what any of these factors have anything to do with considering the book’s merits or lack thereof (witness Gawker’s superficial dismissal, for example), but I suspect the early wave of Pessl pecking (or perception thereof) spawned this completely unnecessary turbulence. Is a novelist, by dint of her gender, not permitted to pursue a novel of ideas in the 21st century?
• Chunkster Challenge? I’m reading two books over 700 pages simultaneously right now. 400 pages? 400 pages? I’ll see your 400 pages and raise you 200 more! You want a challenge? I unearth the Super-Chunkster Challenge: at least four books over 600 pages between the time period of Jan. 1 and June 30, 2007! And I’ll do this in tandem with any additional reading challenges sure to crop up during the next year. More details to come.
• Behold: WKRP on DVD.

• It’s common knowledge that John Sutherland is an uninformed assclown. But his latest column (which is even more preposterous if you listen to the computer-speech program parsing his drivel) once again begs the question of why an august publication like The New Statesman would hire a no-nothing dullard to cover books. Why my ad hominem fiesta? Well, it’s no different from Sutherland’s strange and uninformed attack on Richard Powers’ The Echo Maker, a novel that Sutherland calls “dense,” and “fearsomely demanding.” Without citing anything specific to support his tenuous argument, Sutherland further suggests that the broadsheets have no interest in calling it. This all comes from a man who hasn’t even read the book. And if Sutherland’s anti-intellectual tone wasn’t enough for you, he then suggests that the publisher-subsidized Quill Awards were set up as a populist alternative. Instead of kvetching about litbloggers, I think Sutherland should be more concerned about the level of stupidity contained within his own ramblings. (via Galleycat)
• Frank Miller’s drawing chair is being auctioned off.
• In the UK, retail is now facing its worst Xmas season since 1981.
• Forbes details the top-earning authors. No surprise: Dan Brown’s at the top of the list.
• BookFox reports on a Dave Eggers/Deng live “interview.”
• Do MP3s sound awful? (via James Tata)
• I must agree with the Hag that “bitch-perfect” should be used more in reviews.
• Dan Green on the NYTBR Notable Books list.
• The 12 Sexiest Men Who Were Never Alive. (via Gwenda)
• Olive Logan: the first literary agent in America.
• Congratulations, Grandpa VanderMeer!
• Apparently, 50 years of copyright isn’t enough for McCartney & Co. (via Ron Silliman)
• Quiet Bubble has declared 2006 the Year of the Woman.
• “Her stories bristle with names and family connections, with the contents of houses, purses, steamer trunks and cars. And, violating another dictum of workshop instructors, the simplest tale will often be told from more than one point of view and in multiple time frames. She shows a lot, but when it’s necessary, she’s also happy to tell.” Thanks, Tony. The prof grants you a B- for your English 101 essay, but I’ll see you at the arcade to play DDR. Will someone please tell Tony Scott that he is a film critic, not a literary one? (And while you’re at it, you might want to let Janet Maslin know too.)
• The Translation Project will be translating 100 Iranian literary texts to English.
• The Gray Lady reports on a phenomenon I observed almost a year ago: literary spam.
• You think litbloggers are bad? In the ’50s and ’60s, literary groupie Alice Denham got around.
• In Palo Alto, Moliere’s Les Femmes Savantes has been updated to 1936 Manhattan by playwright David Grimm.
• Noir writer Elizabeth Stromme has passed away. Sarah has more.
• Anthony Lane on Apocalypto. And don’t miss the SNL recut.

• Book critic Merle Rubin has died. She was 57.
• Another unsung talent who recently passed away: film composer Shirley Walker. (I picked up this sad tidbit while listening to Your Mother Hates This Show, a promising cartoon-based podcast that really should be using a higher bitrate for their shows. Presently, these two enthusiastic gentlemen sound like discomobulated souls stuck in a ratty AM radio loosely mounted in a Studebaker one month away from a scrapyard. Gentlemen, you can do better!)
• Yo, George. Optioning John Grisham? Not sexy. Not sexy at all.
• Times mastheads from 1785. (via Books, Words & Writing)
• Jean-Paul Sartre’s The Flies is set to be staged with 30,000 live fruit flies. I’m surprised that local farmers aren’t raising their pitchforks in protest over this really bad idea. (via The Literary Saloon)
• Radiohead uses Moleskines. Time to find the next hip notebook.
• Norman Mailer vs. Rip Torn. (via the Rake)
• Largehearted Boy has an extremely impressive collection of year-end music lists.
• Diplo’s a busy man.
• 90210 revolutionary? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
• More fodder for the Slate Audio Book Club naysayers. Katie Roiphe on The Emperor’s Chldren: “My favorite novel this year was Claire Messud’s smart and entertaining The Emperor’s Children, for reasons I have already given in Slate. I’ve noticed it’s become fashionable to deflate it at parties, but it really is as good as everyone said before deflating it came into fashion.” Huh? I’d like to know what parties Katie the Airhead’s attending these days. And what the hell does any of this have to do with Messud’s literary worth?
• Andrew O’Hehir meets David Lynch. There’s also a podcast.
• Also at Salon: “I love journalism but I hate asking uncomfortable questions.” My two-sentence alternative answer: Thank you for playing. Step aside so that the real journalists can do their work.

• I’m afraid I can’t agree with Nick Hornby’s assessment (and Scott’s apparent assent) that reading should be entirely enjoyable. For it subscribes to the idea that novels are almost total escapism, as opposed to a proper art. Proper reading, in my view, demands an intellectual challenge. This is not to suggest that an author can’t write books that are both entertaining and thoughtful. (A recent book that comes to mind is Scarlett Thomas’s The End of Mr. Y.) This is not to suggest that books that are intended to entertain are incapable of being assessed. Nor is this a matter of appearing sophisticated or impressing anyone. (Who knew that reading interests were about looking cool on the subway? I read because I’m interested, dammit, and I don’t give a damn how cornball or hip anyone view my reading selection to be.) But any active reader will raise the bar and insist upon books that are better. Any good reader will read widely and not pooh-pooh certain books because of where they happen to be categorized in a bookstore. Any good reader will continually challenge her perceptions and won’t pussyfoot around the idea that some books are bad (and that there are indeed reasons for this). Revolutionary? Nick Hornby is about as revolutionary as a starry-eyed nineteen year old who believes he can change the world: an insufferable naif; a dime a dozen.
• Robert Fulford offers this provocative story on reviewing ethics, suggesting that checking for conflicts of interest are unnecessary and prohibitive to discourse. (via TEV)
• Augusten Burroughs: the new James Frey? (More here.)
• An interesting questionnaire with Mary Gaitskill. All those fuddy-duddies who pooh-pooh comics might take stock in this assertion: “You shouldn’t listen to any music while reading anything but a comic book.” (Thanks, Stuart!)
• So Many Books on Bookforum: “This is an extremely dangerous magazine and should be read with care.” I have to agree. I have had many issues of Bookforum attempt to bite me, poison me, and otherwise abscond with my life. This is a magazine that should be locked up or be handled by lion tamers. I’m surprised Bookforum has lasted this long without a lawsuit.
• Asis Sentinel: “Is it appropriate for a registered charity dedicated to Sri Lanka’s December 2004 tsunami relief to sponsor a foreign literary festival in the middle of what to all intents and purposes is an ethnic and civil war?” And there you have it: twenty minutes of thoughtful cocktail party banter contained in this question alone. Impress all your literary pals and be sure to bring the gruyere!
• Calling all detectives! Help Mark Gompertz find his community! Where could Mr. Gompertz have misplaced it? Is Mr. Gompertz looking in the wrong place? Or did the community never exist in the first place? (Turn to Page 124 for the answer.)
• In The New Yorker, Tad Friend ruminates upon The Office.
• The Poetry Foundation reviews a four-disc box set that collects poetry readings dating back from 1888. (via Isak)
• Who knew? Those who have lower levels of self-esteem prefer crime and detective stories that confirm their suspicions. In other news, those who go to a website with a ridiculous graphic of a woman in a lotus position for their news are more likely to be duped by Nigerian email scams. (via Sarah)
• FoxTrot is going Sundays only. Alas, this unexpected development will not hinder UPS from polluting the funny pages with DOA ass-smelling dreck like Garfield and Ziggy.
• Hitch on Michael Richards and banning language.
• A breakdown of the 2007 Eisner judges.
• The real Giuliani.
• Fi’ty on Oprah.

• Why the war on endnotes? Personally, I find it extremely valuable to see where an author, fiction or nonfiction, culled his influences. (In fact, this issue came up recently in a Segundo interview that will be released later this month. The author was asked if another author had been particularly influential. As it turns out, they were both residing in the same building.)
• Douglas Coupland is now shilling for BlackBerry.
• Trouble in Edinburgh?
• Mr. Asher talks with Susan Winters Smith.
• Marilynne Robinson is offering tips to prisoners. Under the pretence of a fiction workshop, Robinson has been serving up cake recipes with unusual ingredients that should effectively elude X-rays.
• The Australian continues the tedious debate on litblogs vs. mainstream media. It gets many things wrong, but among the more preposterous claims is the idea that Critical Mass emerged because of the Litblog Co-Op. I know from talking with John Freeman that this was not the case at all and that he simply wanted to give the NBCC an online presence. Would it have killed Genevieve Tucker to get some actual quotes instead of speculating as she went along? (Oh wait! That would involve actual journalism!) The problem with Tucker’s article is that she insists upon a Manichean view of the literary critical world, when it is a far more complex tableau, often with considerable overlap.
• :A board game from 1825! (via Weekend Stubble)
• I’m unaware of the Volkswagen commercials because I don’t watch TV, but Scott gives me another reason not to.
• The complete Ray Harryhausen creature list.
• Grow a spine, Gwyneth.
• Far less ho-hum year-end book lists can be found at the TLS.
• Pete Anderson is composing clerihews.
• Prof Fury Gorjus takes in The Hold Steady. Yes, they are that good live.
• ShoStoWriMo?
• Greg Johnson reviews Robert Sheckley’s Mindswap.
• Here’s something new: a film criticism blog-a-thon. (via The Quiet Bubble)
• NYRB goes blogging.
• Novelists? In Houston?
• I concur with Mark Boyer.
• The Corsair on Jay McInerney. I agree. They really don’t make asshats this size at the milliner’s.

• The Denver Post’s 50 Books to Wrap. No Lost Girls? I mean, it’s a beautiful book that, I suspect, is fun for the whole family. (via Bookdwarf)
• Inland Empire trailer. (via Matthew Tiffany)
• Salman Rushdie no longer fears for his life. He fears that his novels will become increasingly irrelevant.
• RotR fave John Barth gets an all-too-brief writeup from the Baltimore Sun. We’re talking a total of four sentences coming from Barth’s lips that are in the article. This is ridiculous. If you’re going to lowball such an interesting author like Barth, what’s the point in publishing this?
• Tori Spelling is writing a memoir. The first draft was composed by her intern.
• Literary speed dating has made its way to Melbourne.
• It’s a sure bet that Rory Ewins will be at Wembley.
• Shannon Garrity’s Narbonic will be ending on December 31, 2006. The strip has run continuously since July 31, 2000 without missing a single day. So Garrity has earned a vacation. Garrity appeared on The Bat Segundo Show #32. (via The Beat)
• Congratulations, Bookninja.
• Wordie: like Flickr, but without the photos. (via Books, Words & Writing)

• Daniel Olivas interviews Salvador Plascencia.
• Lev Grossman on the Ian McEwan mess: “The disparity between the greatness of McEwan’s achievement and the pettiness of this complaint is vertiginous. That McEwan even bothered to answer the charges is gobsmacking.”
• Five novels for your inner drunk. (via Books Inq.)
• 75 Books? Try committing 100 poems to memory over a year. (via Bookninja)
• Terry Teachout, “In the Mood.”
• Just when you thought the Madonna adoption flap couldn’t get any more ridiculous, it goes into overdrive.
• Occasional Superheroine: an essential blog chronicling women’s issues in comics, as experienced by former DC/Valiant editor Valerie D’Orazio. (via The Beat)
• Pirate illustrations from Patricia Storms.
• Chasing Ray has kickstarted a series looking into books about writing.
• The Zuckerman Cycle will come to an end.
• George Saunders on Borat.
• Michael Allen on page layout.
• If you haven’t been reading Derik Badman‘s series, “Rethinking Transitions,” comic makers take note.
• The justice system works! (via Syntax of Things)
• Everything you could possibly want to know about Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn.
• Wondering how you can maneuver your way onto the Costa shortlist? Try cancer.
• What goes on at Beatrice Monti’s writers colony?
• Man, poor Ngugi wa Thiong’o just can’t get a break. In addition to the Vitale incident, four guys tried to rob him a few years ago in Nairobi.
• No surprise. On the book digitizing front, Yahoo doesn’t like Google.
• Kevin Sampsell devises new literary terms. This sounds suspiciously similar to the Literary Hipster’s Handbook!

Talk about a veritable cyberlynching. First Gawker, now Kevin Sampsell.

• Adam Rogers eavesdrops on BSG‘s writers. (via Locus)
• Jenny Davidson’s “The Other Amazon.”
• Professor Fury’s “Songs I Couldn’t Get Out of My Head in 2006.”

• Pitchfork talks with Tom Waits. (via Anecdotal Evidence)
• I wonder what the ACLU will have to say about Jesse Jackson’s politically correct fascism. Guess we’ll have to remove Faulkner & Co. from the libraries. Has it ever occurred to Jackson that racial slurs might be used against racism?
• Margaret Atwood, cartoonist. (via Bill Peschel)
• The Whitbread shortlists have been announced. (And dammit, I’m calling it Whitbread. I can’t bring myself to associate a literary award that reminds me of a certain smug NBC commentator from the 1980s.)
• Matthew Tiffany reveals what he read in 2006. I’m going to attempt a similar list at year’s end, if I can.
• Congratulations!
• The 7 Worst Fonts (via Books, Words & Writing)
• John Freeman reveals The Page 99 Rule. It involves something like this: If a book looks interesting, flip to Page 99. If Page 99 doesn’t grab you, go to Page 33. If Page 33 doesn’t grab you, read Page 66 upside down with a stopwatch. If you are not compelled to turn the book right-side within 30 seconds, then the book is not worth your time. Sell it to a used bookstore. Failing that, toss it in the fireplace. Failing that, consider the paper as an exotic garnish to go with your beans and rice dinner. (This latter element of the rule assumes that you cannot afford so much as parsley and is ill-advised for those who maintain strict diets, either by choice, allergens, or financial necessity.)
• Robin Quivers has declared Seinfeld racist and The Corsair raises an eyebrow.
• Finally, and this has nothing to do with literature, the endless onslaught of Xmas music at nearly every public location has me contemplating heading for the hills and settling in a shack with an arsenal of canned food and shotguns. And it isn’t even December yet. Is it too much to ask the shops, restaurants, and other assorted places to turn off this damn racket? Who, pray tell, are the people who groove to this cheery nonsense? Particularly as it is portrayed by the likes of Neil Diamond, Barry Manilow and Madonna. I have tried my best to inure myself to it, but I am likely to become a Scrooge sooner than required. Might some kind soul with loads of spare time offer a comprehensive list of places one can settle where Xmas music doesn’t pollute the auditory meatii? Surely, I cannot be alone.

• How did I not know about the Body Heat: Deluxe Edition DVD? This great Lawrence Kasdan film pretty much galvanized noir into cinematic action over the past twenty-five years, paving the way for Blade Runner, John Dahl’s fantastic pre-Unforgettable films and Curtis Hanson’s understated offerings (of which I would include The Bedroom Window, which manages to work despite the dreaded Steve Guttenberg presence). I’m not sure, however, if so-called “neo-noir” is really all it’s cracked up to be, particularly when you consider this dubious list. Good noir has a hard edge, rooted in an existential dilemma with the clock ticking. This quality is particularly absent in such pedestrian films as Training Day, Road to Perdition, and Reindeer Games. Kasdan reminded us noir’s dynamo with Body Heat, but it’s too bad many of his followers have been more interested in the lowest common denominator than entertainments which emphasized the human condition. (And as a side note, after seeing Babel last week, maybe I’m alone on this, but I think Alejandro González Iñárritu could direct a great noir if he wanted to. His films have both the darkness, the acting, and the structural heft that good noir often requires.)
• Note to news outlets: the OJ story is dead dead dead. Please stop reporting on this for the benefit of the humanities.
• Kakuro: sudoku for smarter people? (via Word Munger)
• RU Sirius asks various people if America has reached a fascist state yet.
• A response to Michael Bérubé’s What’s Liberal About the Liberal Arts.
• Tayari collects a roundup of Bebe Moore Campbell obits.
• Rachel Cooke: always the source of a raised eyebrow.
• Scott McKenzie reveals the hard truth about online fleshpots.
• Henry Kisor has some interesting words on L’Affaire Gasparini.
• Eat me, Tim Toulmin. Do you really want to turn blogs into lifeless husks? Blogging shakes people up in ways that are currently prohibitive to newspapers. What you call inaccurate, I call satire. And I trust readers to separate what are clear satirical fabrications from genuine news. Because I respect their intelligence. Prohibiting persistent pursuit? It is often the inexorable quest for a story that has a journalist, print or online, unearthing the truth. I don’t entirely disagree with Toulmin’s principles (particularly in relation to children and victims of sexual assault), but I have a fundamental problem with Toulmin’s assumption that blogging is newspaper journalism. Sometimes, it is. Sometimes, it isn’t. But I cannot subscribe to any uniform code that severely misunderstands the blogging medium.

• Mr. Sarvas talks with Jonathan Lethem on all matters Daniel Fuch.
• Ian McEwan is now fighting another plagiarism rap.
• RIP William Diehl.
• I’m sorry, but 1,500 words is not a novel. And what kind of life experience does a six year old have? Until this kid coughs up a gripping 75,000 word mystery about an icky girl trying to spread cooties to first graders, I remain unimpressed.
• Raul Guerra Garrido has received the Cervantes Prize. But if you ask me, Spain doesn’t throw nearly as much money around as New Zealand does.
• John Barrell demolishes Hitch.
• Could it be that Levi and Scott are starting to see the light?
• The Gray Lady discovers that girls like comic books too. Next week’s shocking discovery: Girls have vaginas!
• All My Children plans to include a transgender character.
• Over at Bookslut, Raina Bloom tallies up the Notable Books figures. No surprise. A sizable portion have written for the Times. The Times does not regret the error.
• I have lost faith in The Bat Sex Award. What were the judges thinking putting David Mitchell on the longlist? The whole point of the passage in question is to chronicle a twelve year old boy’s unfamiliarity with sex in an awkward manner. Go after the real literary criminals, such as the preposterous sex contained within Jay McInerney’s The Good Life.
• I haven’t read BeBe Moore Campbell, but Tayari observes her passing. Also from Tayari: John Ridley is an incoherent hack. But then you already knew that.
• I believe Lev Grossman may be the first critic to compare Infinite Jest with Dickens. (If I’m mistaken, please let me know.) Unfortunately, Grossman’s interesting observation is cut short by the ridiculous limitations of the 600 word review. I’m thinking Grossman should get a blog. (via Jeff)
• JSF has gone to the dogs. (via Gwenda)
• Will Self on gay polygamous Mormons. Only in Nerve. (via Locus)

• The AV Club talks with Donald E. Westlake.
• John Freeman almost certainly looks like Nick Lachey.
• Sean Lennon: “That’s a really stupid question, dude.”
• Henry Kisor, who thankfully has a sense of humor (unlike Jerome Weeks), on fixings.
• Matt Cheney’s Rules for Writing.
• NBA reports from Sarah and Ron (Lethem and Sorrentino are truly BFF in the photo for the second link).
• Did Dana Gioia save the NEA? (via Silliman)
• For the Republicans, Trent Lott is like the kid you reluctantly invite back to the party after he’s raised a stink.
• If you’re not listening to them already, Justin Bauer explains why the Hold Steady deserve your attention. (via Largehearted Boy)
• Infinite Jest turns ten and Dave Eggers weighs in.
• Sean Cooper believes that HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are DOA. Me? I’m waiting for this rerun of the VHS vs. Betamax war to play out. I’m also waiting for HDTVs to be affordable. I’m also waiting for the television that I’ve owned for eight years or so (which I rarely turn on) on to crap out. Oh, hell, who needs these toys when you’ve got books?
• The Stranger reviews Lost Girls.
• On the free books debate, Book World evokes Dr. Johnson.
• Sara Nelson has jumped the Monday gun to remark upon the OJ mess.
• Methinks Bookninja doth protest too much. George, these are great titles! I publicly call for a Canadian-American literary exchange by post, in an effort to further tranquility between our two nations.
• Callie promises another epic series of posts on Heidi Julavits.
• It’s good to see my fellow San Francisco Fringe 2004 participant Baba Brinkman getting some good press for The Rap Canterbury Tales.
• E.L. Doctorow: “I do no research beforehand. I start writing and find what I need as I go along. You will find very few inaccuracies, if any, in my account of Sherman’s campaign. I always hew to the truth, though in some matters my truth may not be yours because a novel is, among other things, an aesthetic system of opinions.”
• The California Literary Review talks with Richard Ford. Still no sign of Tod Goldberg’s conversation, in audio or textual form.
• Mark Winegardner begs his readers not to pigeonhole him. Dude, you’re the one who picked up the check to write these Godfather books. Not once, but multiple times.
• HST’s ashes blown into the air. (via Rake)

• I can’t believe that I’m in the position of defending both Sam Tanenhaus and Franklin Foer for this review, but since Mr. Hogan has taken them both to task, I should note that, in all fairness to Foer, he probably turned in his review of the Woodward book well before Rummy resigned. Of course, with Tanenhaus timing this review to appear after last week’s elections, presumably with the assumption that the Republicans would win, demonstrates how untimely delay can sometimes be a book review editor’s folly.
• The Washington Post‘s Bob Thompson talks with Philip Roth as the third Library of America volume of Roth’s complete works hits bookstores.
• Just how low has Duran Duran sunk? So low that they’re collaborating with Justin Timberlake.
• Where most people can laugh off (and possibly be honored) after being given the South Park treatment, Richard Dawkins is highly dismayed.
• The Beat unearths a telling indicator re: Lost Girls.
• Rumors of the fountain pen’s death have been greatly exaggerated.
• I’ve been highly dubious of Jerome Weeks’ book/daddy, seeing as how the man was such a cry baby about litbloggers. But any guy who cites Buster Keaton can’t be too bad.
• Bookworld asks whether blogs sell books.
• Largehearted Boy observes that this week marks the release of the great Joanna Newsom’s new album. And he says that it’s become his favorite album of the year.
• Instead of reading the rambling nonsense (apparently, a “review” of Lisey’s Story) that appeared in this week’s NYTBR, King fans might want to check out this King interview, in which he discusses what frightens him.
• The Simpsons Movie trailer. Yawn. Watching The Simpsons intermittently over the past several years has been a bit like watching a once robust American Cream Draft limp around the racetrack, when it really needs to be shot and put out of its misery.
• Jenny D in the New York T.
• Will Self on trying to procure song rights. (via Splinters)
• The New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association is trying to sex things up. They’ve opted for a new title for their trade show. But it isn’t Indie Booksellers Unite for Good Merlot. It isn’t Booksellers for a Better Tomorrow. It isn’t the Indie Booksellers Plot for World Domination Conference. Instead, it’s the pedestrian “The Booksellers Sales Conference,” which sounds about as inviting as eight hours of watching Powerpoint presentations. Come on, NAIBA! You can do better!
• You’ve got to love the EU. They just outlawed television product placement.
• Ron Silliman on “Howl.”
• This may very well be a first: Norman Mailer has confessed a weakness!
• Time‘s Richard Lacayo talks with Gore Vidal. His response to gay marriage: “Since heterosexual marriage is such a disaster, why on earth would anybody want to imitate it?”
• An Immanuel Kant mystery? WTF?
• The Scotsman‘s Stuart Kelly compares Irish literary stratagems with Scottish ones.
• Anthony Lane on Casino Royale.
• Bella Stander reports on Ralph Steadman.
• Robert Fulford explains why you should be reading the Times Literary Supplement. (via Kitabkhana)
• Frank Kermode on William Empson.
• The Time Traveler Show features a 1974 conversation with Asimov.
• Richard Pachter: “It’s not enough to write a great book. Authors are now expected to play an active role in book marketing and promotion. In this brave new world of always-on media, scribes are expected to pursue or make themselves available to every potential reader.” Come on, Pachter. Do you really want to raise Updike’s blood pressure?
• RIP Ellen Willis.
• Editor Misael Tamayo Hernandez has been found dead after running several corruption stories.
• Some of this year’s NaNoWriMo participants include David Thayer and James Tata. No work online, but I wish them luck.
• Glenn Greenwald calls the Washington Post out for failing to note Bush’s little white Rummy lie.
• Ed Park uncovers some interesting papers.
• Done Waiting examines the interesting case of Kyle Sowashes.
• One thing you may not get from print media, particularly those who are more interested in being cultural gatekeepers: helpfulness and cooperation.
• Long Pauses discovers Fassbinder.
• HD-DVD: the future of advertising?
• Hitch on Borat.
• Flak Magazine introduces Flak Radio.
• Another Deng-Eggers interview.
• Re: Lost: I concur with Amy’s Robot.
• How many writers write. (via The Publishing Spot)

• James Ellroy, as every literary person knows, is insane. In fact, he’s so insane that a bestselling novelist, who wasn’t exactly the beacon of mental health himself, once told me that he was frightened of him. But the publicist who got Ellroy into the same room as Deborah Solomon is brilliant.
• Mr. Dan Wickett, the indefatigable man behind Emerging Writers Network, has launched Dzanc Books with a certain Steve Gillis. But now he has first title: a short story collection called Roy Kesey’s All Over, which will be published in October 2007. I’m definitely looking forward to reading this.
• Paul Auster on writing.
• If you need a little funny before tomorrow’s elections, which seem to be stressing me out as I prepare for the possibility of two more years of total Republican control, look no further than Buster Keaton’s “One Week,” featuring perhaps the best policeman kick in cinematic history (just after the famous motorcycle gag).
• The ULA now has a book review blog. I was going to dismiss it, but any book review site passionate about Upton Sinclair can’t be all bad.
• If you’re in Los Angeles, the world’s biggest Richard Ford fan, Tod Goldberg, will be interviewing Ford on Wednesday night. This is the guy who not only drove 300 miles to see Ford, but who left his sick-as-a-dog S.O. to do it. That’s hardcore. I mean. That’s hardcore. Hell, even I wouldn’t do that. So you can imagine that this will be a particularly exuberant conversation.
• Rupert Everett’s memoir sold for £1 million and has only sold 15,000 copies. Other fascinating flops here. (via Bookninja)
• Has Sin City 2 been canned?
• A strange advertising deal between Google and newspapers.
• The first ten minutes of the absolutely terrible Chevy Chase Show. How bad is it? Well, within the first minute, he talks in a high-pitched voice and sets up a puking joke. While he is introduced, he shoots hoops as if going through a midlife crisis. Train wreck television history.
• Oprah kills literary momentum?

• e + j = ____
• a + k = ___ (b m)
• c + n = ___ (b f)
• g + o = ___
• h to p
• d + l = _____
• greatest value for d = michiko?
• i to o

a = opportunism
b = via
c = reading
d = bitter reviewer
e = Lee Goldberg
f = Syntax of Things
g = sex
h = former journalist
i = your favorite indie band
j = Germany
k = online virtual world
l = Richard Ford
m = Bookninja
n = empathy
o = fiction
p = blog

• The New York Times investigates Aleksey Verner and he still comes across as a wanker. Paul Collins suggests that Verner is the second coming of Hugh Gallagher.
• Jason Boog asks Áine MacDermot about investigative journalism and procures a list of helpful links.
• Hurray, film noir! And speaking of film, I saw The Departed over the weekend and hope to offer some thoughts on what this means for both Scorsese and the film business later this week.
• Housekeeping #1: For those who have emailed me on the Millenia Black story this past week, after several conversations calling into question the veracity of what has been claimed, I have decided to stop pursuing it. I have neither the time nor the inclination to proceed further — unless, of course, a reputable publication pays me to write an investigative article. But if you remain curious as to the why, Lynne Scanlon comes the closest in her speculations.
• Housekeeping #2: And while we’re on the subject of overblown publishing industry scandals, a big amen to Miss Snark for her thoughts on L’Affaire Armstrong.
• Jim Holt quibbles over Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion, but Mr. Asher finds problems within Mr. Holt’s review.
• Anthony Grafton on the history of academic charisma — specifically, William Clark’s book on the subject.
• Patrick Kurp reviews Richard Powers’ The Echo Maker.
• Are awards the death knell for literary culture? (via Bookninja)
• RIP Jane Wyatt.
• Poppy Z. Brite on planning out her novel. (via Chasing Ray)
• You say that Oprah is a thoughtful television show? Think again.
• At 64, Harrison Ford is “fit enough” to star as Indiana Jones. And by “fit,” Spielberg assures us that he’s only using the walker on weekends.
• Robert Bly will receive $775,000 for his personal archives. Memo to University of Minnesota: you can have my personal archives for the low, low price of $235,000. And you can pay 10% of this with a lifetime supply of Tootsie Roll Pops. Get in touch with my attorney.
• Is ghostwriting where the real money’s at?
• Video of Chris Ware at the Wisconsin Book Festival.
• You make the call: Does Tanenhaus thinks bloggers are dickheads? (Perhaps penis-shaped brownies are the remedy here.)
• Lauren Cerand on how important bloggers are to publicity.
• As yet unpublished in the States (a solecism for which this Faber fan hopes some publisher will atone for), John Barlow takes a look at Michael Faber’s The Apple.
• Stephen King: MoveOn pitchman.

• The Beatles’ Discography in Limerick Form.
• Coover & Silverblatt (via Rake).
• Why do books have to be ugly?
• The Myths of Writing (via Booksquare).
• C. Max Magee on Tin House‘s graphic issue.
• The Man Asian Literary Prize? What George said.
• Verizon to give grant for literary services. And by literary services, I think we all know that this means more text message haikus.
• Apparently, the owner of Centuries and Sleuths really, really, really likes Erik Larson.
• Did Theo Marzials write the worst poem ever?
• Laura Miller on Laura Kipnis.
• Spy Magazine stuff on YouTube. (via Waxy)

• Lifelong reader Jessica has less time to read. It’s a situation that plagues us all, but consider not being able to finish a book sitting on your nightstand since January. (via James Tata)
• The original title of Kate Atkinson’s One Good Turn was Jolly Murder Mystery. (via the Literary Saloon)
• The current state of book review coverage.
• This year’s nominees for Governor General’s Literary Awards. George opines that it’s “a great small press list.”
• Alvaro Pombo has won the Premio Planeta, Spain’s most lucrative literary award.
• Everything that’s wrong with author appearances: “Those purchasing books will be given a number, and the signing will follow in numerical sequence.” Not mentioned: Those who get there at 6 a.m. will be automatically entered into a drawing to personally wipe Charles Frazier’s bottom.
• Why aren’t e-books successful? One word: plastics.
• Rawson Marshall Thurber knew he was the one to direct Michael Chabon’s The Mysteries of Pittsburgh. The signs came as Thurber stared at himself long and hard in the mirror for seven hours, admiring just how goddam special Thurber was. He would have settled for five, had not Thurbert caught the glimmer of his own irresistible smile staring back at him. Thus, he required two more hours of solipsistic worship. Thurber clearly knew he was a genius. He also knew that Chabon was a genius, although it was quite clear to Thurber that he was the greater genius of the two. So he called Chabon and informed him that they were both geniuses. Chabon, in a particularly low mood, responded favorably to this plaudit and quickly signed away the film rights. And now Thurber stares long and hard again into the mirror when he isn’t directing, when he isn’t writing, when he isn’t existing. Rawson Marshall Thurber: if only we could all be like him.
• Chloë Schama asks why people love Murakami.
• Paul Barman talks with Weird Al.
• Chef Alain Roby has set a new record for the largest chocolate skyscraper. Unfortunately, current dessert zoning laws in New York have forced the building that Roby labored many long hours for to be prematurely demolished, to make way for Chef Robert Moses III’s grand boulevard of chocolate syrup.
• Bye bye, Macha. Best of luck, Tigers.
• Nick Tosches’ Dean Martin bio has been named the greatest rock and roll book of all time by Blender. What? No Lester Bangs?

• Over at The Rap Sheet, someone has somehow convinced James Ellroy to blog: “I’m James Ellroy, the demon dog of American literature, the author of sixteen books, twelve novels, a full length memoir, a book of short stories and two journalistic collections. Masterpieces, all.” Only the demon dog himself could get away with such argot. (via Sarah)
• The Kenyon Review joins the list of this year’s awards who hand out honorariums to the obvious choices. Could Philip Roth be next?
• A new biography may solve the mystery of Agatha Christie’s 11-day disappearance. What was it? In a nutshell: quaaludes.
• More on the Bechdel/Thompson fiasco from the Marshall Democrat-News. (via Brockman)
• Ursula K. Le Guin on the new Susanna Clarke book: “These are all elegant, entertaining stories, and many readers will be untroubled by the airy incoherences found in ‘The Ladies of Grace Adieu.’ Or else, they may simply say, with Tom Brightwind, ‘Who cares?'” Count me in the latter camp. (via Gwenda)
• SF Site has the scoop on a remarkable new overview of Philip Jose Farmer’s work.
• Better late than never: Paul Collins on the closing of CBGB.
• This week’s New Yorker offers a new story by Aleksandar Hemon.
• America’s Ten Dumbest Congressmen. What? No Lieberman?
• Bill Murray was bored. So he ended up hanging out with college kids. “The alcohol ran out very quickly when word got round that he was with us.” In other words, being in the presence of Bill Murray causes people to drink.
• Bon Jovi and James Brown at the same time? Wrong. So very, very wrong.