Smatterings

Remember a few months back when it seemed like every paper under the sun profiled or interviewed Mark Haddon? Well guess what, there’s room for one more, as the New York Times, yet again, does its best tortoise impression. I kid, but Mel Gussow’s profile of the multi-award-winning author does seem, well, rather tardy….

The Guardian presents its top ten books about Queen Elizabeth the First, ranging from Lytton Strachey’s “overwrought” tome to…Ally Sheedy’s children’s book? Then again, at least Faye Kellerman’s THE QUALITY OF MERCY didn’t make the cut. A decade’s past since I read that book and I’m still recovering….

Nancy Pearl, librarian to the stars, has retired from her post at the Seattle library. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer gives her a rousing send-off, but what I want to know is how her doll could outsell the Jesus doll (and Mozart and Beethoven? What’s next, she’s outselling the Bruckner and Hindemith dolls, too? Blasphemy!)

A chapbook of poems that bestelling author J.A. Jance compiled in the 1980s about her struggles with her then-husband’s alcoholism and search for her own self has finally been reissued.

Brazil might seem like an unlikely place for a literary festival, but by all accounts, the second annual Parati Literary Festival was a smashing success, attracting over 12,000 visitors and the likes of Margaret Atwood, Ian McEwan and Paul Auster to its shores. The Christian Science Monitor reports back.

Ed read Alex Garland’s THE COMA and, well, didn’t like it so much. He explains why in his review for January Magazine.

Paul Scott argues in the Scotsman that the recent application by Edinburgh to be declared a World City of Literature isn’t just legitimate–it’s a must.

Rick Kleffel plays a neat game of six degrees, wending his way through a profile of Point Blank Press, Dave Zeltserman, and Hardluck Stories.

Quick hits from some of my favorite places: David Montgomery reviews Barry Eisler’s latest novel at January Magazine; Jon Jordan interviews Jim Fusilli, and Collected Miscellany’s on an interview mini-tear, talking to M.J. Rose and Simon Kernick.

A few days late but no dollars short: Laura Lippman spent an hour on Diane Rehm’s WAMU talk show to talk about BY A SPIDER’S THREAD, entertain phone calls and emails, and let spill that she may be editing an anthology of Baltimore crime stories. If it is to be, we’re so there.

More books we are getting excited about: Tim Page of the Washington Post reports on a new, extremely dishy book by Herbert Breslin, manager to the opera stars. He already ups his cred in my book by slamming Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, and isn’t much kinder towards Pavarotti or Domingo. Whee.

And finally, the Scotsman tries to argue that Robert Burns and James Boswell were the founding fathers of….rap? Read on about their favorite hobby of “crambo.”