The Thursday roundup

And it’s all BEA, all the time–I’m hoping that at some point, my designated spies will check in and feed me information that might be of use (or gossip that might not be of use but is still fun to post.) But while I wait, here are some links to tide you all over:

So evidently, James Kelman is of two minds–he can be happy-go-lucky, like he is with his current book, or fearsome, as he has been to reporters and Booker Prize types. The Scotsman gets to meet the Shiny Happy incarnation this time.

Jenny Colgan, chick-lit author extraordinaire, is rather pissed off that she hasn’t been invited to the Hay Festival. It’s meant to be tongue-in-cheek, but I wonder….

David Bemzogis’s new short story collection NATASHA: AND OTHER STORIES is making a huge splash in the US. But hey, he’s Canadian! And writing about Canada! So naturally, Rebecca Caldwell profiles him in the Globe and Mail.

Stop it, please–another profile of Ian Caldwell & Dustin Thomason? God, must I really link to it? I mean, I’m sure the book’s great, and I do trust the opinions of others, but all these friggin’ profiles and articles? Her oyf shoyn. Oh, and this one quotes Otto Penzler, too–should I award a triple word score for that?

Nigel Calder, who once worked on the New Scientist but now edits big science books that outweigh the latest Harry Potter, has gone on the offensive, attacking those who seek to subjugate the “mavericks” and the ones with radical ideas that can change the very face of various scientific concepts. Well, that’s all well and good, but what else is new? Science academia is all about spending your entire life on an increasingly miniscule and esoteric subject. Which is why I’m not a science academic, I suppose….

Book piracy? It seems so cumbersome, but the New York Times seems to want to sound some kind of alarm. Yeesh, just the prospect of scanning in pages, editing them, and printing them off makes my head hurt…

Good news if you’re seeking those Lost Welsh Classics but can’t exactly find them–There’s a new website devoted to archiving such books in perpetuity (or the closest thing to it)

And finally, yesterday it was lobsters, today it’s rubbish–the kind that becomes treasure, of course. Meet Davy Rothbart and find out about the quest that spurred him to write a book called “Found” all about it.