Egads! It’s another massive weekend update

NYTBR: All right, I throw up my hands. So I take it the revamped TBR version of La Stasio’s column means there are a) fewer releases and b) it appears less frequently. So confused, am I! Anyway, she digs the latest Dalziel & Pascoe from the mind of Reginald Hill, Jim Fusill’s fourth novel, and the return of Domenic Stansberry with CHASING THE DRAGON (interestingly, for most of the same reasons I’ll use next week–god, the man can write.)

Otherwise in the TBR, Woody Allen appreciates George S. Kaufman, Liesl Schillinger’s rather underwhelmed with Susan Isaacs’ tenth book (quoting the theme song from “The Facts of Life”? Yeah, I’d say so….) and Laura Miller wonders what the writer’s space tells us about his or her work and habits.

WaPo Book World: Doug Winter reviews the tortured history of Kirk Bloodsworth, one of the most high profile exonerations via DNA; Margot Fonteyn gets an exhaustive look in this new biography; and Toni Bentley, um, gets ripped a new one in this scathing review.

G&M: Chip Kidd, who’ll be in town for the International Festival of Authors (where I anticipate I’ll be spending a fair amount of time at) is profiled about his work, his terraced apartment, and how celebrity fits with being a book designer; otherwise, Liam Durcan turns from his day job as a Montreal-based neurologist to writing acutely pointed short stories, James Laxer writes a memoir about growing up in the age of McCarthyism, and how fitting of Martin Levin to round up baseball books with the World Series starting tonight.

Guardian Review: Jennie Erdal details a life as a ghostwriter for a flamboyant, unnamed publisher; Carl Hiaasen gets even more political than usual, and there’s yet another complaint about being a midlister.

Observer: Robert McCrum wishes the Booker would cut out the sideshow antics, Lucrezia Borgia gets a well-deserved second look in a new biography, and the editor of the Guardian switches over to writing children’s books.

Best of the rest:

We’ve all seen the headline: Gay Novel Wins Booker. Pithy, but not totally accurate, as Alan Hollinghurst tells the Sydney Morning Herald’s Stephen Moss.

Richard Ouzonian of the Toronto Star catches up with quasi-Canadian Kathy Reichs, who was in town last night for the IFOA. She reveals that FOX is working on a pilot based on her books–but making use of Reichs’ life for the main character instead of Tempe Brennan’s…..

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The NY Post interviews prolific YA author Walter Dean Myers]20, who sets his 80th novel in his boyhood home of Harlem.

Dan Phillips, a former head of the CWA, is giving up writing mysteries. After the death of his wife six years ago and now retired from his post as a clerk at the Walham Parish Council, Phillips will write his memoirs.

Peter Carey and his son had a really good time in Japan–hardly any conflict. So what could he possibly write a book about? He explains to the Sydney Morning Herald what he finally came up with.

Yvette Banek, who’s decided to take a respite from reviewing crime fiction, offers up a glowing one for Jim Fusilli’s HARD, HARD CITY for January Magazine.

The Scotsman launches its second short story contest to find the best new Scottish writers, and also asks some leading writers–like Janice Galloway and Ian Rankin–their favorite Scottish and overall stories.

The Boston Globe speaks to Meg Rosoff, who overcame years of family tragedy to become an overnight success as a YA author in the UK, and soon, the US.

Walter Zacharius is the longtime publisher of Kensington Books, which holds a zillion different imprints. But now he’s turned to writing novels, and tells the Chicago Sun-Times what prompted him to do so.

So who was the real Marie Laveau, Voodoo Queen? A new biography published by the University of Mississippi Press attempts to discover the woman behind the legend.

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review’s weekly interview is with Jonathan Lethem, who has a new short story collection out (which gets a resounding pan from Popmatters.)

And finally, well, not everyone has to love the Booker winner, but the antipathy here is disturbingly similar to my own of last year’s winner….