Alice Randall, who parodied Gone with the Wind, received an injunction from the Margaret Mitchell estate, and won her case on appeal, is suggesting that Pushkin was part of the Harlem Renaissance with her next novel. Alas, Carlin Romano isn’t impressed: “Unfortunately, Randall’s effort drags for many of the same reasons “The Wind Done Gone” did: overwriting and repetition, tiresome thumping of racial resentment, and a pathetic Afrocentric need to claim scalps for the cause. Windsor’s logorrhea suggests that Randall’s own self-absorption trumped any ambition to master her invented subject. The entire Russian aspect of the book reads like pretentious window dressing for a shapeless vanity tale.”

He was raked over the coals by Blogger, but you can find the trusted Rake at his new Pad.

Sad news from Bakersfield. Bandit, the world’s heaviest raccoon, has passed through the great raccoon gates in the sky. Bandit weighed nearly 75 pounds, more than enough to secure an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records. He was fond of Froot Loops and french fries. He is survived by his owner, Deborah Klitsch.

If keeping up with her publishing schedule isn’t bad enough, the Washington Post reports that Joyce Carol Oates’ theatrical adaptation of The Tattooed Girl will make its premiere at Washington’s Theater J. Oates will also be writing Van Helsing 2: They Needed Real Writers for Universal. Efforts were made to pry the pen away from Ms. Oates’ hand, but she remained stubbornly resistant and even penned a short story during the unsuccessful attempts to stop her from writing.

At the Seward Park Library, serving the Lower East Side of Manhattan for 95 years, annual reports have unearthed details about readers. The Times notes that in a 1920 report, sweatshop workers and tenement dwellers greadly desired Dickens and Hawthorne. During the Depression, “undesirables” scoured the stacks for books on syrup flavoring. And They Were Expendable and A Bell for Adano were popular just after World War II.