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On Outposts (“Book Lust“), Timothy Egan offers a well-worded rebuttal to Steve Jobs’ book dis. (It had better be well-worded, given how much time he had to write it–Simon Dumenco got there much faster.) For most of my lifetime, I’ve heard that reading is dead. In that time, disco has died, drive-in movies have nearly died, and something called [...]

The Quills are no more, at least for now. Why? Nobody’s sayin’ nothin’. From Publishers Weekly (“Quill Awards Program Suspended“): “The Quill Awards have truly helped us advance the cause of literacy for the hardest to reach children in our country, helping to give them the skills and resources they need for a hopeful and [...]

The artist Nina Katchadourian’s Sorted Books project: sort of cool. (Actually, incredibly cool!)

Last Friday, Galleycat had a post (“Edgars vs. Nibbies“) about ugly literary awards…I don’t have anything to add other than that I was glad to see I wasn’t alone in disliking the Edgar statuette. (Which obviously doesn’t disparage the award itself–who wouldn’t love to win one?) And I agree completely: the Hugo is boss. I [...]

Poor James Patterson. His last book for young adults, Maximum Ride: Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports, only sold 192,000 copies. He doesn’t feel badly for himself, mind you–he feels badly for all the unfortunate youngsters who somehow didn’t get the opportunity to read his book. From the New York Times (“An Author Looks beyond [...]

I’m reading Thomas Kohnstamm’s Do Travel Writers Go to Hell? A Swashbuckling Tale of High Adventures, Questionable Ethics & Professional Hedonism (Three Rivers). Kohnstamm, bitten early by the travel bug, has an early-life crisis (at the time the book takes place, he’s still in his twenties), walks away from his job, and flies to Brazil to [...]

Because it’s Friday, I feel I should leave you with something exciting to look at this weekend: “Red-Hot and Filthy Library Smut” (the nonist). Apparently the post was originally called “Sex Libris.” I have the distinct pleasure of telling you that I have visited the premises below in person. (Thanks, Carlos!)

Occasioned by the recent announcement of Lucette Lagnado’s The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit as the winner of the 2008 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, Robert Cohen asks, “Do Jewish novelists write Jewish novels?” (theblogbooks, Guardian Online): Upon reading of the lavish new Sami Rohr prize, given to the year’s best work of Jewish [...]

…have been announced: AFRICA Best Book Barbara Adair (South Africa) End Jacana Media Ifeoma Chinwuba (Nigeria) Waiting for Maria Spectrum Books Finuala Dowling(South Africa) Flyleaf Penguin Books SA Karen King-Aribisala (Nigeria) The Hangman’s Game Peepal Tree Press Susan Mann (South Africa ) Quarter Tones Harvill Secker Zakes Mda (South Africa) Cion Penguin Books SA Best [...]

OK, I see a pattern here. And even: