- 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?
© 2006, Edward Champion. All rights reserved.
