Anne Rice has decided to move to the suburbs in order to “simplify her life.” She also plans to shop more at The Gap, eat more at Denny’s, and spend her afternoons writing at Starbuck’s. Her novels, Rice promised, will retain their mediocrity. The move will also allow Rice to be more in touch with her suburban reading audience.

Okay, something sillier than Ann Beattie’s attempts to intellectualize Leonard or Dwight Garner’s simile-laden minefield. In this Rising Up and Rising Down review, with the exception of the first paragraph, every paragraph begins with “Vollman [verb].” What does The Globe and Mail think book coverage is all about? Five paragraph essays? And Dear Gray Lady, what the hell’s going on this week?

Lord Armstrong, the man who tried to stop Spycatcher from being published, has become president of the Literary Society. The British literary elite is furious. Beyond expressing concerns that the society now has a would-be censor at the head, members are concerned that Armstrong simply isn’t snotty enough, and wouldn’t know Brie from Jarlsburg.

The Times has, predictably enough, a tremendous amount of info and documentation on The Well of Loneliness.

Elmore Leonard talks with the AP about his new novel, Mr. Paradise.

1974 was the year of Gravity’s Rainbow, the first of Robert Caro’s mammoth biographies, the founding of the National Book Critics Circle, and All the President’s Men. So what better way for Auntie Beeb to look back than with an expose on a trashy blockbuster novel?