If there’s anyone who questions the enthusiasm of librarians for their line of work–and it sure ain’t me–show them this. Could writers and readers have any better friends? (Further reading.)

Well, I keep meaning to blog and I keep not blogging and now I’m trying to get out the door to go to Philadelphia for ALA’s Midwinter Meeting. I’ll try to post from there but, who knows, maybe I’ll be back next Tuesday making more excuses. My little clipboard of blog-worthy items is bulging–and gathering cyber-dust.

I’ll leave you with just one link–to a Publishers Weekly story (”Romance Blog Suggests Romance Writer’s Plagiarism; Signet Says It’s Fair Use,” by Lynn Andriani) that includes Google Book Search in a now-familiar role. The somewhat unusual element, however, is that the publisher is not disassociating itself from the author.

Veteran romance novelist Cassie Edwards is revered by her fans for her meticulous research when writing books. From Savage Torment to Savage Sunrise, her books (of which there are more than 100, published by Dorchester/Leisure Books, Signet, Harlequin and other houses) have detailed descriptions of Native American religion, weaponry, cuisine and other subjects. But this week, the romance review blog Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Books called attention to some striking similarities and, in some cases, verbatim passages, between Edwards’s works and a number of nonfiction books about Native American history and customs. Signet, however, is standing by the author.

If you follow the links, you’ll find, in an Associated Press article (”Romance novelist accused of lifting work,” by Hillel Italie) an interesting scene from the author’s home in Mattoon, Illinois:

NEW YORK - A popular romance novelist alleged to have lifted work from other texts acknowledged that she sometimes “takes” her material “from reference books,” but added that she didn’t know she was supposed to credit her sources.

“When you write historical romances, you’re not asked to do that,” Cassie Edwards told The Associated Press, speaking earlier this week from her home in Mattoon, Ill.

Edwards then asked her husband to get on the phone. He told the AP that his wife simply gets “ideas” from reference books.

As Google Book Search identifies more and more alleged plagiarists, the whole discussion of plagiarism is likely to become even more nuanced than it did in 2007. Or, once the number of accused authors grows large enough, accusations may elicit nothing more than yawns.

Or is that happening already?

Today also marks the launch of the first Booklist Online newsletter–Booklist Online REaD ALERT. (Get it? Get it?) I’m fried, so to explain it, I’ll just crib the first paragraph:

Welcome to the inaugural issue of Booklist Online REaD ALERT, an e-newsletter featuring quick links to a hand-picked selection of book reviews, features, and special web-only content from Booklist Online. Future issues of REaD ALERT will be sent to you on the same day that the latest issue of Booklist is published online - and before print subscribers receive their copies of the magazine. All of the content in this newsletter will be accessible to the public for at least two weeks, so follow the links and enjoy. 

Did I mention that it’s free? Sign up here.

Well, I’m back. I shaved off my holiday beard (it grows red and green, natch), tightened my belt, and now I’m raring to go…home, so I can sleep for just a few minutes more. But books never sleep, and neither should I.

In the New York Times (”The Library’s Helpful Sage of the Stacks“), Sam Roberts was written a feel-good profile of David Smith, the New York Public Library’s “Librarian to the Stars.”

Susan Nagel, who has written a book about Marie Antoinette’s daughter that will be published next spring, said: "Every now and then I have an emergency: I can’t read my own writing, I can’t find the proper sourcing, I was hoping that something would come in the mail from France and it hasn’t in time. Somehow David always rescues me. David has had a dream of beginning a writers’ services division of the New York Public Library, but the truth is, he is already that department in one man."

The article starts out by describing Smith as a well-kept secret. Not anymore.

If you’ve been thinking that I haven’t been posting as much as usual lately, you’re right. A combination of new initiatives (watch for a new newsletter, Booklist Online REaD ALERT, in early January) and sleep deprivation (I’ve been talking to my younger son about this) have taken a toll on my blogging. I’m hoping this will be a short-lived situation. Although I am taking all of next week off.

As I depart for the bosom of my family, please accept this humble holiday gift of–me. (I know, I know, even tinsel and ribbons can’t disguise Shameless Self-Promotion.) I have a short story, “If You Should Have Any Need at All,” in the Chicago Reader’s annual fiction issue. And if you should have any need for a little Graff prose next week…well, here you go.

(Cool illustration by Jon Adams.)

We had the Booklist holiday party this afternoon, about which I will report only two things:

1) Bill Ott mixes a mean cup of nog

2) I was the recipient of the Don Chatham Spilled Drink Award

About #2, let me just say that it was nothing to do with the egg nog–it was a previous event. And, in my defense, I was not the spiller, but the spilled-upon. As you may surmise, there wasn’t much competition this year. (And, in answer to your question, yes, I will have my name engraved upon a plaque.)

(And yes, I have already alluded to a holiday party already, but that was the ALA party. This was the Booklist party. Later this week we will have the Publishing party. And you wonder why I earn the big bucks.)

Due to said party, there will be only one post today, but it is yuletide-themed. In the Guardian (”Every loo must have one“), Stuart Jeffries examines British (and French and American) taste in stocking-stuffer books and learns this:

“The Americans go for self-help books, the French buy unreadable philosophy books and the British buy books filled with trivia, which are often made up and generally aimed at being funny,” Nielsen adds. “Those are the stereotypes, and they’re not completely misleading.”

It’s a very funny read, as this paragraph demonstrates:

Oscar Wilde once lamented that “it is a very sad thing nowadays that there is so little useless information”. If only he were alive today, I would know how to fill his Christmas stocking: with books such as Why do Moths Drink Elephants’ Tears? And Other Zoological Curiosities; Skylarks and Scuttlebutts: A Treasure Trove of Nautical Knowledge; and This, That and the Other. Then there are The Interesting Bits: The History You Might Have Missed; Toujours Tingo: More Extraordinary Words to Change the Way We See the World; The Know-It-All Book; A to Z of almost Everything; Schott’s almanac 2008; and I might even include 211 Things a Bright Girl Can Do, a manual that instructs women - though one hopes not exclusively women - on how to strangle a man with one’s bare thighs and how to make Turkish Delight. I wouldn’t give him a copy of the Bible, because that would be presumptuous, but I would include Trinny and Susannah’s Body Shape Bible, which assigns all humanity 12 body shapes (Oscar would have been a skittle) and shows one how to dress accordingly, as well as Lose Weight! Get Laid! Find God!: The All-in-One Life Planner, both of which he might find obligingly useless.

(Bad language alert: readers will encounter the British spelling of the word “assholes.”)

Because it’s Friday, and you need a larf. Also because I’ll be spending this afternoon at the ALA Winter Event (aka holiday party). Via Bookninja, a lost quarto of Hamlet:

KING            …`Now the king drinks to Hamlet.’ Come, begin,
                And you the judges, bear a wary eye

Trumpets sound.  HAMLET and LAERTES take their stations

HAMLET:         Come on, sir.
LAERTES:        Come, my lord.

Enter FRED, DAPHNE, VELMA, SHAGGY, AND SCOOBY

The Chicago Sun-Times profiles a small-town boy with big-city ideas (”Small-town boy, big-city ideas,” by Mark Eleveld):

Uptown takes a lot of its character from its bars, buildings and the different crowds — the occasional transient looks like he popped out of a dime store novel, and the bouncers are straight out of Raymond Chandler mysteries. Al Capone owned some of these streets. In the winter, there is that sharp Chicago wind whipping off Lake Michigan that all regard with respect. Uptown is a part of Chicago belonging to the likes of Nelson Algren, Studs Terkel, Mike Royko, Richard Wright, or Sandburg and Dreiser and Farrell. If you don’t know anyone when you first walk these streets, you’ll know someone leaving.

In the Guardian books blog (”Literary TV to put you off reading forever“), Daniel Kalder offers the producers of Book TV some useful suggestions to improve their programming. But here’s the short version:

For the sake of literacy in the US, Book TV must be taken off the air.

Well worth reading.

Just a friendly reminder that, if you’re in Chicago, I’ll be reading, signing, and celebrating the release of my new book, My Fellow Americans, from 5:30-7:30 tonight at After-Words (23 E. Illinois).

(If you’re not in Chicago, I’ll still be doing all of the above, but I’d imagine there’s a lot smaller chance that you’ll be able to join us.)

Join us! There will be food and drink and quite possibly SEVERE WEATHER outside.

But I can’t imagine a better place to be trapped by severe weather than a bookstore, providing there is food and drink. Which there will be. Or did I mention that already?