Today, Haruki Murakami’s translator announced that Mr. Murakami would win every single literary award in 2007 and that there was nothing that anybody could do about it.

“The Kiriyama Prize was just the beginning,” said Alfred Birnbaum, one of his long-time translators, speaking on behalf of Murakami. “We’re going to take the Booker, the Orange Broadband Prize, the National Book Award. It doesn’t matter if Murakami was nominated or eligible or not.”

Asked what personal stake he had in stumping for Murakami or voicing such extraordinary Howard Dean-like excitement, Mr. Birnbaum revealed, “Those bastards Gabriel and Rubin are hogging the work.” So Mr. Birnbuam’s claim is to be taken lightly.

Disgraced editor and publisher Judith Regan announced this morning, “Contrary to recent reports, rumors of my career death have been greatly exaggerated.”

Regan is back in the saddle with FuQuBooks, a new press founded upon an ancient Sumerian principle that is said to have greatly influenced Cole Porter.

FuQu’s flagship title will be Protocols Misunderstood, an anthology in which several prominent writers will write about their closet anti-Semitism. Regan declined to name names, noting, “You’ll have to buy the book to find out!”

The book will revisit some of the tenets contained within the controversial book, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, applying them to the O.J. Simpson trial, American Idol, and grilled cheese sandwiches — the latter, allegedly a considerable threat to the master race.

Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code, has at long last decided to sue himself. In a lawsuit filed with the United States District Court, Mr. Brown named himself as plaintiff and defendant, and efforts were underway to establish Mr. Brown as the Judge trying the proceedings.

“I’m tired of being sued for plagiarism by third-rate writers,” said Brown. “As a third-rate writer myself, the time had come to conduct my honorable duty.’

Brown hoped that his lawsuit would set a precedent in which the only literary sources for The Da Vinci Code were, in fact, various notes and fiction that Brown had been working on: in other words, a quite conscious theft from Brown to Brown.

Sensing that two months of Jonathan Lethem touring around the nation was not enough, Doubleday has extended Mr. Lethem’s book tour to five years, hoping that this will increase sales of his latest novel, You Don’t Love Me Yet.

“We got the idea this weekend while watching a Gilligan’s Island marathon on Nick at Nite,” said Doubleday publicist Nadia Meringue. “We figured that if it worked for Bob Denver and Alan Hale, Jr., that it would likewise work for Lethem. We will not rest until their is a Lethem volume in every household’s library.”

Critics raised cautious eyebrows over this eleventh hour publicity move, fearing that Mr. Lethem might be overexposed and unable to write additional novels.

“Novels schmovels,” said Meringue. “We figure that if enough people can get a piece of Lethem in person, they will be compelled to buy any book with the words ‘Jonathan Lethem’ on it.”

To ensure that Lethem-mania goes as planned, Ms. Meringue has fitted Mr. Lethem with a medallion designed to hypnotize all audiences who come into contact with him.

An advanced copy of the seventh Harry Potter volume, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, unexpectedly made its way into the hands of longtime fan Harriet Schultz, a 14-year-old girl in Milwaukee. Schultz, who finished the book a week ago, has done nothing but cry after learning that Harry Potter is allegedly gay. The moment occurs on Page 530, when Harry reveals that his favorite band is the Scissor Sisters and begins to demand that the Hogwarts begin ironing their shirts.

“How else do you explain that limp-wristed signal to the sky?” said a noted conservative resident who refused to give his name. “Forget witchcraft. J.K. Rowling has had this agenda all along and, as a concerned parent, I think we’re all entitled to a few answers.”

Rowling and Scholastic could neither confirm nor deny that Harry Potter was gay.

“Well, he doesn’t actually say that he’s gay, now does he?” said Harold Bloom, who called our office because nobody had quoted him for an article in a long time and he was in great need of attention. “I still find these books to be trash, but it’s of great comfort to learn that Rowling has become somewhat familiar with William Empson.”