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Like most people, I enjoy complaining about the unfair advantages — money, connections, good looks — that successful people have used to reach their advantaged stations in life. So I was eager to read Sharon Steel’s article (“Aesthetic Genius,” the Phoenix*) about the extra attention paid to good-looking writers. Rubbing my hands, I anticipated the rich [...]

Wow! Post-apocalypse is really in the zeitgeist. Galleycat (“Quick Update on the End of the World“) reports on Wastelands, an upcoming anthology of “the best post-apocalyptic science-fiction published in the last twenty years.” It looks like a good book, but I can already spot one glaring omission: the complete text of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.

The Turcotte family has settled their lawsuit against Augusten Burroughs and St. Martin’s, reports the Boston Globe (“Family settles with ‘Running with Scissors’ author, publisher,” by Rodrique Ngowi): Burroughs and his publisher, St. Martin’s Press, agree to call the work a “book” instead of “memoirs,” in the author’s note and to change the acknowledgments page in [...]

My absence yesterday was not, in fact, because I was tired out from writing my massive Tuesday post – I was home with a sick kid. (Mine, fortunately.) And now today I feel almost to tired to post. But books never rest, and neither do I. (Huh?) From the Guardian (“Alastair Campbell tops poll of discarded books,” [...]

Reading the Chicago Tribune Books section on Saturday — yes, Saturday — I had a strange feeling in the middle of Adam Langer’s review (“Just the facts“) of Michael Harvey’s The Chicago Way: I thought it was unfair. Like Langer, I gave the book a mostly negative review. But some of his criticisms bothered me. I guess I’m saying [...]

Speaking of OIF, if you’re going to be in Chicago on Saturday, September 29, 2007, here’s where you should be between 1 and 4 p.m.: As part of the 26th annual celebration of Banned Books Week, the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom, the McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum, and the Newberry Library are holding a Banned [...]

Ending a long drought, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road has won a major literary prize. (What has it been, four months?) From the Beeb (“Author McCarthy scoops book prize“): Pulitzer Prize-winning US author Cormac McCarthy has won the UK’s oldest literary award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction. Yes, it’s a welcome turn of events for [...]

Writing about local resident James Wood (not to be confused with James Woods, me), the Boston Globe (“The Elegant Assassin,” by Christopher Shea) asks: But what does it mean that the most storied magazine in American history has aligned itself with a critic who essentially rejects the premises of a broad swath of contemporary American fiction? [...]

It just occurred to me that in my post yesterday about Harlan Coben, I should have made it absolutely clear that, even though I have never read them, Booklist has reviewed and continues to review his books. We’ve even given them starred reviews. Perhaps our ivory tower is made of phenolic resin? The Woods (2007) Promise Me [...]

John Crace (Guardian books blog, “Don’t give up the day job“) with a bit of perspective on the dream of becoming a writer. Not that it’s hard to find this kind of perspective, but it never hurts to hear it again. Wait a minute, it does hurt. Reminds me of the line in Spinal Tap [...]