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He was sick of the excuses and the lies. He was tired of the evasions and the untruths, of people refusing to stand up and speak the truth and take responsibility for their own actions. It seemed to him like yet another symptom of the decline of Western civilization; of chaos; and climate change; and [...]

The Commonwealth Writers’ Prize has announced the 2007 winners for Africa: Best Book Award The Native Commissioner, by Shaun Johnson (Penguin) Best First Book All We Have Left Unsaid, by Maxine Case (Kwela) Both winners are from South Africa, leaving a host of other nations to shake their fists and lament, “We wuz robbed!” Overall winners [...]

The Commonwealth Writers’ Prize has announced the 2007 winners for the “South East Asia and South Pacific” region. Again, a pretty broad swath, so I think these gents can feel quite proud of themselves: Best Book Award Mister Pip, by Lloyd Jones (Penguin) Best First Book Tuvalu, by Andrew O’Connor (Allen and Unwin) I had this [...]

So, apparently, women do have vaginas. From the Chicago Tribune (“School lifts suspensions for ‘Monologues’ reading“): WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — The one-day suspensions imposed on three high school students for including the word “vagina” in a reading from “The Vagina Monologues” have been rescinded, one girl’s mother said Tuesday.  Actually, the school officials’ silence leaves [...]

From the New York Times Sunday Book Review (“Annals of Poetry,” by David Orr): But the Poetry Foundation, however misguided or impolitic, hasn’t given up on poetry. The question is: Has The New Yorker? (I was going to title this post “Booya!” But then I realized that I wasn’t really sure how to spell this [...]

There have been some surprising developments in the saga of O. J. Simpson’s alleged confession, If I Did It, lately. I know I said that I wouldn’t write about this tiresome brouhaha any more, but…. You know what? I’m still not going to write about it. My own interest in the story shames me. And there are more [...]

The shortlist of the Lulu Blooker Prize has been announced. The prize honors “blooks.” If you don’t know what a blook is, well: Blooks are the world’s fastest-growing new kind of book and an exciting new stage in the life-cycle of content, if not a whole new category of content. Wait, that doesn’t help. Try [...]

Reading Read Roger this morning, I found a link to a helpful list of controversial children’s books in The New Yorker (“Inappropriate,” by Paul Rudnick). For example: "The Pretty Little Bunny" Melissa, the pretty little bunny, woke up one morning in May and said, "I think I’ll hop-hop-hop over to the carrot patch. I’m so pretty that all [...]

After careful consideration of copyright issues, Jonathan Lethem puts his money — er, make that “intellectual property” — where his mouth is. Says he: On May 15th I’ll give away a free option on the film rights to my novel You Don’t Love Me Yet to a selected filmmaker. I don’t have any snarky remarks about [...]

I just posted Donna Seaman’s first-person report on the NBCC Awards on Booklist Online (“Both a Literary Marathon and a Talent Show: A Report from the National Book Critics Circle Awards“). You can tell she’s a book critic because, after dropping this tantalizing tidbit, she neglects to tell us what Dave Eggers was actually wearing: In another [...]