Edward Champion's Return of the Reluctant

Roundup

• As reported several places, Jonathan Coe has won the Samuel Johnson nonfiction prize for Like a Fiery Elephant: The Story of B.S. Johnson.
• Edward Jones has won this year's IMPAC award.
• The Blog Story thing is making the rounds. Sarah and Gwenda have offerings.
• In Congo, 1,000 die per day: why isn't it a news story?
• To hell with Michael Jackson. Apparently, Pretenders frontwoman Chrissie Hynde, who is a big fan of Martin Amis, got drunk and attacked him at a book signing. The moral of the story? Celebrities are scarier than regular Joes.
• Ellen Feldman's new novel speculates on what happened to Peter van Pels, the boy that Anne Frank had a crush on.
• Haruki Murakami still contends that he's not part of the literary establishment. There's also some stuff in the article about writing routines and the like.
• It looks like the Village Voice might be taken a cue from the litblogosphere. Not only has their books section included readings, but they're now sending Ed Park to cover book signings.
• Online dating services are doing big box office in Australia. We're talking $15 million a year. What's interesting is that the people who use this dating services (at least in Australia) seem terrified by the idea of meeting someone at a pub. There are some 1,700 services that exist which cater to specific crowds. And now there's a consumer's guide available purporting to explain whether these services actually work.
• Tiffany Murray lists her top ten dark comedies.
• Bono on Bono: Must we feed this man's ego any further by printing a book on this?
• Birnbaum dances with Alma Guillermoprieto.
• And Galleycat gets to the bottom of this whole eBay ARC-selling bidness.