And some news to tide you over

So according to a study in Scotland, ²⁄₃ of the countryfolk are more likely to pick up a book to read than they were 25 years ago. Thank Harry Potter and television. But what the study doesn’t address is whether a given person continues to read said book….

Hanif Kureishi is a well-acclaimed writer, but at one point he contemplated being an architect. Now the tables are turned as his 10 year old son asks him what he should do with his life. Kureishi speaks of this, and other matters, with Simon Houpt of the Globe & Mail.

Newbie crime writer J.A. Konrath has received a lot of favorable ink of late (my own included) and gets even more over at Mystery Ink in a new interview. Konrath also answers one of Zarina Docken’s One-Question Interviews about his rocky road to publication.

Oline Cogdill interviews Janet Evanovich just as the latest Stephanie Plum novel, TEN BIG ONES, hits bookstore shelves. Evanovich also talks a little about her next project, a new series set in Miami that launches in November with METRO GIRL.

Is it me, or has it become eminently fashionable to attack Lynne Truss’s EATS, SHOOTS AND LEAVES in any way, shape or form? Here’s another critical view from The Age.

Boo hoo. Tony Parsons got divorced some years back (from Julie Burchill? Really? How did I miss this?) and turned his navelgazing into bestselling novels about the frailty of the male psyche. Now a new one’s out and Parsons talks to the Manchester Evening News about it.

USA Today’s “darker shade of chick lit” article rings a faint bell–oh wait, I remember now! It’s because the New York Times did the same article last month.

G.P. Taylor (of SHADOWMANCER fame) has struck it rich yet again, this time with a 3.5 million pound movie deal for his second book, WORMWOOD.

And finally, meet Chris Chiavetta, a 29-year old American who has gone to Korea to seek fame and fortune–in bookselling. Oh, such pipe dreams….