More Smatterings

Maxim Jakubowski and Mike Ripley remember James Crumley.

The Times’ Ben MacIntyre visits with Elmore and Peter Leonard.

Oliver Sacks talks to the WSJ about music and the mind, his daily swims and why he’s newly keen on the artwork at the Cloisters.

Are we going to see books about the collapse of Wall Street? Well, maybe. Actually, yes, as Publishers Marketplace reports this morning that Roger Lowenstein’s SIX DAYS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD, “a look at last week on Wall Street and in Washington, illuminating the origins of the crisis,” has sold to Ann Godoff at Penguin Press.

Oh, and I hope this is true and bears out. Related, ahahahahaha.

It’s Blumesday!

Meet this year’s edition of the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35.

This is not a sustainable model for book reviewing.

Art Taylor enjoys reading classic Washington tales in DC NOIR 2.

Bob Thompson profiles Francine Prose as her new novel, GOLDENGROVE, comes out.

Both Chip McGrath and Boris Kachka profile former Grove publisher Barney Rosset, the subject of a new film, OBSCENE.

Department of Duh, exhibit one and two.

Roger Ebert, he’s a funny one.

Linked all over, but David Foster Wallace’s syllabus for a 2005 freshman lit course at Pomona is a fascinating document. And in retrospect, spooky as hell that he assigned Thomas Disch’s “Displaying the Flag” for the students to read…

And finally, I’m with Jenny D on this – a rather suspect procedural move, I have to say!