Gotta get some links

The erotica writer Zane is finally going public, and the Boston Globe presents a very long profile of the pseudonymous author. OK, I thought her name was outed some time ago…Erika something? Was I just hallucinating this fact?

The Globe also reviews Qiu Xiaolong’s new novel WHEN RED IS BLACK in very glowing terms.

German-Irish novelist Hugo Hamilton (who wrote a couple of weird little crime novels a few years back) looks at the tendency of Germans to suppress their emotions in the name of abject loneliness. Hmm, Germans, identity crisis…maybe that explains their fascination with klezmer?

After reading this interview with Antanas Sileika in the Globe and Mail, I want to read his first novel WOMAN IN BRONZE like, right now. Roaring twenties…gotta love it.

John Mullan looks at a parfumiere who’s designed fragrances that specifically match odorous moments in novels. Of course, trying to link up to Patrick Suskind’s PERFUME might be going above and beyond….

The New Zealand Herald profiles Birlinn publishing, the people who own Polygon and are raking in the moolah thanks to the unqualified success of Alexander McCall Smith’s novels.

Read a self-contained short story excerpt from Susanna Clarke’s JONATHAN STRANGE AND MR. NORRELL at the Agony Column.

Marilynne Robinson’s new novel, GILEAD, is her second–after a twenty-three year hiatus. She talks to the New Yorker about the big gap, the impact of her first book HOUSEKEEPING (which we’re kind of struggling through at the moment) and how she deliberates over her words. (link from Rake.)

And finally, the Age looks at the plight of the ghost writer, from the very public ones (like Eric Shaw Quinn) to the ones we’re not even supposed to know about. It’s always a fun parlor game to guess which bestselling writers are ghosted, after all….