Sunday Smatterings on President’s Day Weekend

Alan Bradley is hot, hot, hot in Canada, what with profiles in the Toronto Star and at Abebooks.com, and a middling review in the Globe & Mail.

Oline Cogdill reviews the new Linda Fairstein novel, LETHAL LEGACY.

More SPADE AND ARCHER approval from Clayton Moore, Jane Sumner and Rollie Welch.

Margaret Cannon reviews the latest in crime fiction by Jose Latour, John Harwood, Carol O’Connell, Charles Todd, A.C. Baantjer and Patricia Cornwell.

Declan Burke looks at various “masters of murder and malevolence” for the Irish Independent.

The Seattle Times’ Mary Ann Gwinn talks with Dan Simmons about DROOD, his take on Charles Dickens. The WSJ’s Robert Hughes has his say on the novel, too.

Scott Timberg chats with Yiyun Li about mainland China and living in the United States for the LA Times.

The print Book World says goodbye, but editor Rachel Shea says hello to the revamped section.

Lev Grossman and Sophie Gee offer a joint playlist for Valentine’s Day.

Stona Fitch talks about his recent initiative to give away all copies of GIVE AND TAKE, a recent novel of his. But that initiative’s over, for he’s signed a deal to have the book published in traditional fashion by Thomas Dunne Books.

Chaim Topol: still playing Tevye after all these years.

And Budd Schulberg, whose 1941 novel WHAT MAKES SAMMY RUN? is one of the greatest satires on Hollywood, is still alive at almost 95, telling stories about Elia Kazan, Muhammad Ali and the writing life to the Independent.

This Observer profile of Richard Milward is fine, but I’m wondering if it’s just me who thinks the young novelist bears a passing resemblance to Neil Gaiman.

Who should bear the blame for Canadian publishing’s woes? Marc Cote claims it’s a function of stocking too many non-Canadian books, but that seems rather specious…

And finally, one of my favorite crime stories of the year so far.