The incredibly belated weekend update

NYTBR (and additional daily stuff): It’s the poetry issue, which means I’ll link to this overall symposium, but since I’m more of a fiction/non-fic kind of girl, it also means I’ll pay attention to Leisl Schillinger actually liking something (Gloria Vanderbilt’s autobiography!) and Roy Blount’s roundup of Southern-themed books, as well as Amanda Hesser escaping from the Food Pages to write a review of a new foodie biography. In the daily, Daniel Akst looks at computer software that purports to write novels (is this kind of like the Infinite Number of Monkeys Theorem?) and the much-belated publication of a book by Irene Nemirovsky, written 62 years ago and before her death at Auschwitz.

WaPo Book World: Jessa Crispin makes a surprising reappearance in the Sunday review with her roundup of new graphic novels; Michael Dirda is touched by the angelic writing of Marilynne Robinson; and Sally Quinn appreciates the complete and utter brain candy that is Penny Vincenzi’s new novel. In today’s daily paper, Patrick Anderson digs the Rumpole prequel, which I also found to be a great deal of fun as well.

G&M: Frank McCourt is very appreciative of Robert McCrum’s PG Wodehouse biography;  Natasha Cooper waxes positively rhapsodic about Ruth Rendell’s latest effort, the one that’s just been published in the UK and Canada but won’t see US publication for a zillion years; and Riot Grrl-type Emily Pohl-Weary’s first novel goes under Jim Hartley’s microscope and wins.  In the daily, John Doyle gets cranky about depressing Irish lit–no wonder, considering Frank & Malachy’s double-act play is now premiering in Toronto.

Guardian Review: A ton of goodies over the weekend, including a treatise on how difficult it is to part with books when you move;  Natasha Walter calls for the Good Sex Award (wait a minute, I thought 3 AM  Magazine is doing such a very thing) and Rachel Hore rather admires Robert McGill’s debut crime novel. Also on the crime side, Maxim Jakubowski, in his new roundup of genre releases,  falls into the same trap that has felled so many reviewers: DARKLY DREAMING DEXTER is not, I repeat, not, Jeff Lindsay’s debut novel. Otherwise all those books he wrote with his wife Eleanor Hemingway would just be a figment of my imagination. How hard is it to actually bother doing some research? I realize publishers make it difficult, but come on–if I can find these things out, so can the rest of the world. Seriously.

Observer: Francis Hawkwood was a bad, bad Renaissance man, but he gets a good, good biography out of it; the horribly tragic story of Yu Xuanji is exposed in a new book; and Robert McCrum can’t resist weighing in on the issue of plagiarism that was brought up by Malcolm Gladwell in last week’s New Yorker.

Scottish papers: Ukranian novelist Nella Bielski gets some very nice notice in the Sunday paper; Bernard-Henri Levy went to Iraq, reported from the frontlines, and didn’t come back with much; and another rave review is awarded to Dame Rendell.

All the rest:

Duane Swierczynski uses his City Paper pulpit most effectively to profile the boys of Hard Case Crime and highlight what’s great about the new line of retro and neo pulp (having just read a galley of Allan Guthrie’s KISS HER GOODBYE, the streak continues.)

Margery Allingham’s novels are slowly being reissued in the UK, and the Glasgow Herald’s Rosemary Goring gives them their due.

The SF Chronicle looks at two different books but gives them the same result: unabashed raves for both Martin Cruz Smith and Kate Atkinson.

Speaking of Cruz Smith, he gets a similarly good review from Dan Fesperman over at the Baltimore Sun and Elliot Noyes at the Moscow Times.

I think if I had had more space to write a longer review in my own column about ABSENT FRIENDS, it would have been very similar to Rick Sullivan’s in the Grand Rapids (MI) Press.

Gary Dretzka of the Chicago Sun-Times is once again charmed by the setting and landscape of Tony Hillerman’s novels, the latest being SKELETON MAN.

Oline Cogdill looks at two very different books by Glenville Lovell and Peter Guttridge, but finds favor with both.

The Contra Costa Times profiles Tim Junkin, whose new book BLOODSWORTH looks at the first inmate to have been released from Death Row after DNA evidence exonerated him.

Shore Publishing, which owns a host of Connecticut papers, profiles local author David Handler, whose new novel THE BURNT ORANGE SUNRISE has just been released.

Rick Riordan is primarily known for his Tres Navarre crime novels, but next summer he’s making his children’s fiction debut–and the book’s already sold to the movies.

UK small publisher Allison & Busby had a good year in 2004, much in part to its successful and growing crime fiction list.

The Independent profiles Andy McNab, and while he’s a legendary war hero and all, he’s not quite as stellar on the novel side…

WHSmith, OTOH, is purging, at least when it comes to awards: say goodbye to the People’s Choice and Thumping Good Read Awards.

Murakami Fever has spread all across the world–and now hits China with a vengeance, according to Asia News Net.

And finally, that is one astronomical library fine–but sending the guy to jail seems a bit much…