Smatterings

R.I.P., John Updike. The links are plentiful and ongoing (especially as compiled by David “Greatest Aggregator in the World” Hudson) but the pieces I keep fixating on are the two he wrote for NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC – one on dinosaurs, the other on Mars. And a poem for Scientific American! (via) Not to mention Updike really did love New York.

Motoko Rich at the NYT looks at the self-publishing game. 

Sebastian Barry won the overall Costa award for THE SECRET SCRIPTURE. 

Neil Gaiman took home the Newbery Award for THE GRAVEYARD BOOK – more or less debunking the whole controversy about the award’s relative relevance.

Rebecca Saletan, a month removed from her resignation from the mess that is HMH, is now editorial director of Riverhead.

The whole “Roberto Bolano was a drug addict” was only the tip of the fabrication iceberg, it looks like.

Michele Ross at the Cleveland Plain Dealer had her say on mysteries by Charles Todd, Louise Penny, Charlie Huston and Margaret Lawrence.

Hallie Ephron does the same in the Boston Globe about new crime fiction by Josh Bazell, Roland Merullo and Charles Todd.

Jeff Abugel of Richmond Magazine goes in search of where Edgar Allan Poe honeymooned.

Cambridge appoints its first head female librarian – ever. In many centuries.

Will there be a new edition of the Kindle unveiled on February 9 at the Morgan Library?

And finally, we now know what a concussion looks like.