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From the Department of Almost Too Good to Be True, a dinner party for the authors of Dinner Party Disasters turns, well, disastrous. From Publishers Weekly (“Bloodshed at Connecticut Book Party,” by Lynn Andriani): As entrées were being enjoyed, a McCain supporter and an Obama supporter, having exhausted their verbal arguments, lunged at each other with [...]

Rawi Hage’s debut novel, De Niro’s Game, has won “the world’s richest literary prize,” the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. How rich is it? A cool 100,000 Euros, which, according to Bloomberg, translates to 154,000 simoleons. From Joanne Wilkinson’s Booklist review: Both terse and lyrical, Hage’s narrative is a wonder, alternately referencing modern American action heroes and [...]

Yes, things have been quiet at Likely Stories this week, but the June 1 & 15 issue of Booklist is now live at www.booklistonline.com. And . . . REaD ALERT!

Even the most successful authors can still learn a thing or two. From The Onion (“Now That I’ve Learned About Foreshadowing, I’m Going To Use It In All Of My Stories,” by John Grisham): Guess what? There is this really neat literary device I just learned about, and it’s called “foreshadowing.” It’s this thing where, [...]

Well, this is cool. I’m pleased to find myself in very good company–alongside Booklist associate editor Donna Seaman and Booklist reviewer Mark Eleveld, to name two–in the NewCity Lit 50, published to coincide with the Chicago Tribune Printers Row Book Fair. And speaking of Printers Row, if you’re in Chicago and you’re planning to attend, you can [...]

I’m only on installment 58 (of 675) in War and Peace, so I doubt I’ll be taking on any more inbox-only reading, but DailyLit has announced another free offering of bit-sized book chunklets: Spanish Billionaire, Innocent Wife, by Kate Walker (Harlequin). Here’s what you’d be getting into: Raul Esteban has always wanted Alannah. She is [...]

Just read a terrific essay by Luc Sante about his personal library (“The Book Collection That Devoured My Life,” the Wall Street Journal): I’m not a snob about books, but I’m probably a show-off — as who isn’t? My showing-off is of a pretty low-key if not completely abstruse sort, though. No one has ever [...]

Now this is my kind of literary feud. There’s been bad blood between Derek Walcott (The Prodigal, 2004) and V. S. Naipaul (A Writer’s People, 2008) for years, but Walcott just took it to a whole new level, debuting a poem, “The Mongoose,” onstage at the Calabash Literary Festival in Kingston, Jamaica. From the Guardian (“Rhyme [...]

So I actually had it in my calendar last week that the Audies were going to be announced, but I didn’t get around to it, and then today I went to the site and the only listing I saw right away was a table of contents that requires a ridiculous amount of clicking to see all [...]