Stephenson and Jonathan Strange not enough? Why not try Paul Anderson’s Hunger’s Brides? It’s 1,376 pages long (via Booksquare)

LANDLORD: “Why didn’t I get the rent check?”
BUSH: “It’s hard work.”

LAURA BUSH: “You missed our dinner date.”
BUSH:: “It’s hard work. You’re sending mixed messages.”

WAITER: “Here’s the check, sir.”
BUSH: “The thing I don’t get is how my bill remains so inconsistent.”

UNEMPLOYED AMERICAN: “I’ve been unable to get a job for eighteen months.”
BUSH: “It’s hard work. I make difficult decisions every day. But you’re in my heart. But you attacked first.”

[UPDATE: B has the goods on last night’s smackdown.]

[UPDATE 2: Number of times Bush said “hard work” during the debate: 11.]

Carrie has the scoop on Norman Mailer and her mom: “Her courtroom work in Boston had put her in contact with a lot snakes and liars — there was one well-connected politician who repeatedly showed-up at her doorstep in the middle of the night, expecting to be taken in because of his last name (creepy she said, because he shouldn’t have even known where she lived) — and so Mailer, even in all his bluster and alcoholism, was a far more appealing species of male.”

Michael Berry compares the last volume of Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle with the last volume of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series: “Stephenson, on the other hand, is best appreciated once you have a solid liberal arts education under your belt, perhaps with a couple of graduate courses thrown in for good measure.”

Mulk Raj Anand, one of India’s best-known English writers, has passed on. He was a few months shy of 100.