Back to the grind

And what else to lead off with but Book Expo, since it will dominate the book landscape for the rest of the week? Of course, giving the keynote address (in true hit-and-run style as he’s flying out almost immediately afterwards) is Some Former President or another. Me, I’m more interested in what may happen when a couple of bloggers come face-to-face with their biggest nemesis: the Book Babes!

One of my new favorite upcoming imprints is Hard Case Crime, the “revisionist pulp” paperback line that launches this fall and has some incredibly arresting cover art. The New York Daily News talks to the co-founders, Charles Ardai and Max Phillips, about their new venture.

Alexander McCall Smith’s been on a such a promotional gravy train that it’s no wonder, according to this profile in the Christian Science Monitor, that he’s taken a three-year unpaid leave of absence from the Edinburgh University Law faculty. Oh yeah, and there are only three more Precious Ramotswe books left?! What am I gonna do when it’s done? Sigh….

For all those writers desperate to be published in the New Yorker–now there’s a mathematical formula you can apply to the process, thanks to the work of one plucky Princeton engineering student. Of course, there’s the whole applying science to artistic endeavors thing that may blow it all sky high, but what the hell…

Linwood Barclay is a Canadian mystery writer who’s somewhat of an anomaly–his debut crime book, BAD MOVE, is garnering buzz in the US with its release by Bantam, but nary a peep from Canadian publishers. The Toronto Star talks to him and reveals the process of getting published–thanks in large part to Barclay’s go-getter agent, Helen Heller.

Good news for Sebastien Japrisot fans: the French Department of the University of Bristol is hosting a symposium on the famed suspense writer next September, and is looking for abstracts and posters. Having read a few of Japrisot’s works (my favorite is the WWI-set A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT) I can see why academics might be foaming at the mouth to deconstruct his books….

Salon offers up their summer beach reads. I wouldn’t normally link to Salon stuff–registration, day pass, blah blah– but there’s quite the entertaining installment of ConnellyWatch ™. This time, it’s provided by Charles Taylor, who likes the Narrows well enough, except for what he perceives as clunky writing. Can’t argue about taste…(link from CAAF, who’s running the joint at Maud’s this week.)

Oh, this is so beyond meta–the Guardian challenges highbrow writers to play Scrabble. The results? Well, you’ll just go and have to see, but one lucky writer got a triple-letter score.

Jasper Fforde has won the Wodehouse Prize for humor in fiction for his latest Thursday Next entertainment THE WELL OF LOST PLOTS.

So how does Elmore Leonard stack up as a children’s writer, now that his new book, A COYOTE IN THE HOUSE, is on the market? USA TODAY is rather underwhelmed with the end result.

And finally, old news but still funny–is Andy Kaufman really dead, or alive and…blogging? See for yourself, although it’s quite curious that there are no new posts since the 20th of May. I mean, what are they going to do next, exhume the friggin’ body and do DNA tests just to be sure?