• The real podcasts worth listening to? The sexual ones.
• Sophie Kinsella learned to bake bread while researching her latest novel. Sadly, neither the recipe nor samples of Kinsella’s bread are being offered with the purchase of a book. Come on, Sophie! Think bigger!
• The cult of reclusive authors is examined by the Cape Times: specifically, Cormac McCarthy and John Twelve Hawks.
• Forget the loss of a family member or the end of a bad relationship. A website has been set up to cope with the real grief of our age: helping Harry Potter fans to cope with plot revelations in the latest book.
• Apparently, pigs can fly.
• Ann Coulter has been caught plagiarizing. Apparently, the sentence “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity” was originally published in White Power Monthly. (via Moby Lives)
• And finally, a non-porn narrative film that portrays real sex. One more reason to like Michael Winterbottom: authenticity instead of faux Hollywood orgasms.

Via the Millions comes the scoop on Kurt Vonnegut’s next book. A new collection entitled A Man Without Country (Seven Stories Press), will collect “short essays and speeches composed over the last five years and plentifully illustrated with artwork by the author throughout.”

New York Post: “Cutler, meanwhile, knows exactly how Haobsh feels….’She has to realize that her window of opportunity is very small. She needs to get out there, interview. She needs to make sure people don’t forget about her. As an author, it’s a good career move,’ Cutler adds. ‘She’s making a name for herself and even though she was anonymous before, she’s somebody now. And it depends on how good-looking she is, I hate to say this but if you’re going to have your picture taken, it helps.'”

Mad Max may be gone, but Miss Snark, the Literary Agent has arrived. I sense a conspiracy here.

Miss Snark’s entries are composed of enraged one-sentence paragraphs, depicting an attention span forever at war with the attention-seeking world around her. Who knows? She could very well be your agent.

(via Jimmy Beck @ the Hag’s)

We really wish we could make this, but we have other social obligations. Still, for all culture vultures, if Books by the Bay doesn’t whittle you down on Saturday afternoon, there’s the San Francisco 3-Minute Film Festival, which promises a variegated collection of films no more than three minutes long. It all goes down at Root Division, located at the corner of 17th and South Van Ness. (via the SFist)