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Posting will probably be somewhat sporadic over the next couple of days as I spread literary holiday cheer amongst my family. We’ll be back on a regular schedule towards the middle of next week. In the meantime, I hope everyone has a fantastic and safe holiday season!

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n+1 features an intriguing article on the nature of the supposed reading crisis, the tactics the contemporary authors are using to stall the Grim Reaper, and the influence of Oprah. After listing some marketing tactics used by ambitious writers, The Reading Crisis states that the activity of reading, “flat on its back, encounters these clown-suit [...]

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The Book Standard recently posted a good interview with Jim Harrison. In ‘Legends of the Fall’ Author Jim Harrison: Loves Home, Hates School, the fantastic writer talked about his preference for the novella form, re-using the same locations for stories over and over again, and how too many aspiring authors don’t read enough. “I’m shocked [...]

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As the days of 2005 fade away and we prepare to launch into 2006, CNN features an AP report on what surely will become a New Year’s tradition… picking the next batch of contenders to The Da Vinci Code crown. The article, Next ‘Da Vinci Code’? Plenty of choices, highlights three new novels that are [...]

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According to a Times Online article, the story you slaved over for years, and then waited two years for it to be published and hit the shelves, has about the same time it takes to sneeze once or twice to make an impression. The article, You Can Tell a Book By Its Cover, points out [...]

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Several of the book blogs recently pointed out the number of New York Times notable books that were written by staffers and even editors of the Grey Lady. For example, Paul McLeary wrote in CJR Daily, that “six of the 61 books on the nonfiction portion of the list were authored by Times staffers, and [...]

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Pamela Paul, author of Pornified: How Pornography Is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships and Our Families, wrote an interesting article in yesterday’s New York Times. Entitled What Are the Blogs Saying About Me?, Paul’s article examines the way authors approach blogosphere discussion of their work. Some, like Maureen Dowd, avoid spending too much time looking [...]

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Philip Roth sat down for a cantankerous interview with with the Guardian and it’s a fascinating piece. In the interview, he explains why he doesn’t smile, how the Jewish-writer tag irritates him, and that he would love “a 100-year moratorium on literature talk, if you shut down all literature departments, close the book reviews, ban [...]

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While crappy publicists get the attention (such as the poor soul who provided fodder for every book blogger by emailing folks about the greatness of Pamela Anderson’s new novel) and celebrity publicists get all the headlines (such as Lizzie Grubman’s automobile antics), the truth is that good publicists do a yeoman’s job in letting the [...]

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Our favorites over at MacAdam/Cage take over the Happy Endings Reading Series in New York City tonight. Jack Pendarvis, Kristen den Hartog, and Victoria Vinton are featured as part of this fantastic series. The folks fire it up at 8pm but the doors open at 7:30 with no cover charge for entry. The reading series [...]

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The fantastic blog Syntax of Things did an amazing job of compiling a list of writers that we all should support. SoT writes, “the “Best of 2005″ lists are already starting to pop up in print and on-line but, really, how many times do you need to be told that Sufjan Stevens made a great [...]

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I was fighting the crowds in a Barnes and Noble the other day, pushing aside old ladies buying kitty calendars for their grandkids and moms piling up those Klutz children’s books that drove me bananas when I worked at a bookstore. I turned the corner and noticed something very odd. Chuck Palahniuk’s Haunted was piled [...]

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All you aspiring authors should keep in mind that the United States Postal Service is raising rates in early January. If you’re pumping out manuscripts now, then your self-addressed-stamped-envelopes need to start carrying the new amount of postage. According to this news release from the USPS website, the wheels have been set in motion to [...]

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Jarret Keene wrote an interesting twist on the ubiquitous gift giving guides we see this time of year. For the Tucson Weekly, ignored “what the big publishing houses in New York want you to buy” and instead picked some gift suggestions from “the small presses in America that consistently produce the tastiest writing, especially compared [...]

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