The election day update

Normally, I don’t get political on this site, nor do I much want to. (There’s a damn good reason this is a literary-themed blog about crime fiction, after all: that’s what I’d much rather talk about) But there’s no question that today is the culmination of many months of anguish, argument and deep-seated anger, and even when the polls close and the winner’s announced, all of those emotions won’t immediately go away. People are livid in a way that hasn’t been seen since, oh, maybe the late 1890s in France, post-Dreyfus affair. And while I certainly have no idea how the next four years are going to shake out, I just can’t believe that the result is going to be absolutely unbearable, no matter who wins. In other words, for those folks casting their gaze northward: that ain’t the answer. And while things will be difficult and it’s hard to gain perspective when they are, I’m definitely curious to see how things will look in 50, 100 years, and what the story truly turns out to be. There’s so much noise that it takes a lot of hard work to find a working signal.

Anyway, enough. Go vote, and remember the old joke: Vote early and vote often. (In fact, some folks have taken that advice very much to heart.) Now, some links to take your mind off:

Roddy Doyle keeps getting asked if he’ll write a sequel to his smash hit (and smash hit movie) THE COMMITMENTS. The answer, then and now, is no. So will people please stop asking?

Ian McEwan talks to the New York Times about the difficulties of filming ENDURING LOVE–and how in spite of everything, the film works.

Oh dear, the Book Babes try to make recommendations to mystery lovers. Somebody try to help ’em out, all right? Because it looks like they could use some help….

Jon Stewart’s AMERICA: THE BOOK isn’t just popular with the 20- and 30-somethings:the high school kids dig it too, as the book’s showing up at school.

Want to be extra-close to John Rebus? The flat used for filming the ITV series starring John Hannah is up for sale…for the low low price of 265,000 pounds.

I forgot to link to Patrick Anderson’s review of FIND COURTNEY yesterday, but he feels rather similarly to me about it.

Marilynne Robinson, whose new novel GILEAD was launched over the weekend at IFOA, is interviewed by the Globe and Mail’s Sandra Martin about the book and its Calvinist bent.

A headstone commemorating Northrop Frye, one of Canada’s greatest scholars, will be unveiled in Moncton this week.

The Australian Courier-Mail looks at the country’s fledgling pulp fiction tradition, thanks to a new book written by academic Toni Johnson.

There’s going to be a zillion more profiles of Tom Wolfe between now and the next couple of weeks but you have to love one that describes him looking like “an etiolated doormouse.” Hilarious.

And finally, thanks to DNA testing, a museum will find out if the skull they have really belongs to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Gosh, all these newfangled technologies! They just take the fun right out of a good mystery….