June Busts Out All Over the Weekend Update

The big news today is the Anthony Awards, but that’s for a separate post. Also, although I am 99% glad I elected to pass on BEA (catering walkouts? labor disputes?), Michael Cader’s writeup of Friday night’s party by Prince cracked me the hell up:

The closer it got to 1:45 in the morning at Prince’s $50 million

compound in the canyons, the more the crowd looked like an LA-Prince

group than a collection of publishing folk. Yes, apparently that was P.

Diddy, Cameron Diaz, Sylvester Stallone, Paul Reiser, Olivia Newton

John, Dr. Phil, and, um George Jones, among many others, alongside

women wearing impossibly small bits of fabric that passed for garments.

But when the musician and author-to-be took the stage, those

distinctions fell away as the crowd danced together in the cool

late-night area, everyone within 15 feet of the stage in what will

likely stand as one of the more unusual BEA-related parties ever.

And if there is video, no doubt it will be taken off YouTube, stat. But I digress:

NYTBR: Richard Russo enjoys Jonathan Miles’ DEAR AMERICAN AIRLINES; Various writers recommend books to the current presidential candidates; and of course Nicholson Baker would be the perfect person to review a compendium of 1840s smut.

WaPo Book World: Glenn Frankel hunts for the real story behind the creation of the state of Israel; Jeff Stein is fascinated by Tim Shorrock’s account of intelligence outsourcing; and Ron Charles gets carried along by Rivka Galchen’s Borges-like prose.

LA TImes: Jessica Garrison attends a mashup of crime writers and gentrification fighters; Susan Salter Reynolds romps through literature with Adam Thirlwell; Swati Padney Q&As with short story writer Nam Le; and Carolyn Kellogg, currently out and about at BEA, reviews a frozen yogurt-themed debut.

G&M: Blah blah Sebastian Faulks blah blah; M.A.C Farrant looks at all sides of the memory spectrum; and Paula Newberg has her say on Barack Obama’s current reading.

Guardian Review: Ian McEwan considers the end of the world in a novelistic sense; Margaret Drabble makes the case for Enid Bagnold way beyond NATIONAL VELVET; and Anne Enright explains why she didn’t write two books last year.

Observer: Sean O’Hagan jumps on the NETHERLAND bandwagon; Rachel Cooke talks of uncommon arrangements with Katie Roiphe; and Euan Ferguson gives Sebastian Faulks an A for effort on DEVIL MAY CARE.

The Times: Kate Muir extols the virtues of procrastination; Joseph O’Neill chats up NETHERLAND to Ed Caesar; Anthony Thwaite considers a titular curious history of death; and Erica Wagner discusses the problems of literary censorship.

The Scotsman: Edward Docx offers a glimpse of his cultural life; David Robinson meets Nick Harkaway, the man who won’t be known as the son of John Le Carre; and Tom Adair doesn’t know what to make of the Vatican-themed thriller IMPRIMATUR.

The Rest:

Oline Cogdill doesn’t have as much room this week to extol the virtues of Craig Johnson’s new Walt Longmire novel but she does her best with the space she has.

Eddie Muller’s latest Guilty Bystander column praises Denise Mina and Shepard Rifkin but is more tempered about Declan Hughes and an English writer he does not name.

In the Telegraph, John Sutherland ponders how crime writers attract and keep readers.

Anna Mundow chats with Donna Leon for the Boston Globe.

Even if he has purged 30 boxes’ worth of books, I so, so, so want to visit Luc Sante’s home library.

Should men judge the Orange Prize? This year’s jury chair says yes and the Independent investigates.

And finally, 9.72. Holy hell.