• Heidi Benson has a definitive report on the LATBR‘s current state: The Book Review will lose four pages and merge with an eight-page opinion section. It could launch as soon as this month. These are unsettling developments to say the least.
• Much to my regret, I was too fried this weekend to attend Wondercon. (I plan to do penance by vigorously reporting at the forthcoming APE.) But Newsarama has a definitive roundup.
• A new installment of The Quarterly Conversation is up, with Dan Green tackling Orhan Pamuk and Scott Esposito raving about Ngugi wa Thiong’o.
• Is Jonathan Lethem competing with Chris Ware in the “I am insignificant!” department? (via Sarah
• Dan Wickett has returned from AWP and he’s offering a farrago of reports right now.
• Stepping in for Mr. Sarvas this week is Joshua Ferris.
• Anastasia Sky: 84 year old first-time novelist.
• Something a bit worthwhile in the NYTBR: Russell Banks on Kundera.
• Giles Foden responds to the whole “Martin Amis as Britain’s greatest living author” controversy, revealing that Amanda Ross, responsible for picking such questionable titles as a Robbie Williams biography for the Richard & Judy Book Club, hates the word “literary.” Well, I’m not fond of anti-intellectuals who are more fond of bullshit labels than a book’s innards, but you don’t hear me complaining.
• Patrick Leigh Fermor is learning to type at 92.
• An interview with Scott McCloud. (via LHB)
• Russian journalist Ivan Safronov plunged to his death from his apartment building. This makes him the 14th journalist to die under mysterious circumstances under Putin.
• Laura Miller on Un Lun Dun. I have enjoyed Miller’s reviews in the past. But I’m troubled by her Malcolm Jones-like pronouncement, “I’d never been able to get past the first chapter or so of the books I’ve tried.” Again, I must ask if today’s book reviewers are lazier than previous generations. It’s one thing if a critic didn’t care for a book, but if a critic is being paid to review something, is it not a critic’s obligation to remark only upon books that she has read? These revelations reflect badly on the reviewer and badly on the pub. Miller dismisses Miéville’s style in these earlier as “half-baked” and “callow,” but it seems to me that if she didn’t read Perdido Street Station and The Scar in full, then Miller’s modifiers are best applied to her own review, particularly since this idle speculation comes with no supportive examples.
• In the UK, Jane Austen is more popular than Jesus. (via Quill & Quire)
• Bruce Sterling on the dot-green boom.
• Me too!
• Linda Richards on Travels in the Scriptorium.
• I’m not very impressed with the new Arcade Fire album, but I need to give it at least two more listens before offering a definitive assessment.
• Mis lit? This is preposterous. Is there someone holding a gun to the Independent‘s editors demanding more trend pieces?

© 2007, Edward Champion. All rights reserved.