Roundup

  • Jeff VanderMeer and M. John Harrison: how can you go wrong with that conversation?
  • I couldn’t make the Lethem-PKD event, I’m afraid, but Matt Cheney has a lengthy report. The included novels in the second PKD LOA edition will be Martian Time-Slip, Dr. Bloodmoney, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, A Scanner Darkly and Now Wait for Last Year.
  • I have not watched Smallville in two years (this was a sad addiction and nobody in particular can be blamed for this, except perhaps an old roommate), but if this is the kind of nonsense they’re now putting out, I think I may have chosen correctly.
  • Things ain’t exactly cozy at the Poetry Society of America.
  • A new “unheard” series of interviews with Graham Greene have been released.
  • For a writer, the importance of cafes can never be underestimated.
  • Exhibit #562 in the Case Against Franzen Being Any Fun. (Come to think of it, Franzen’s starting to look like a beardless Tanenhaus these days.)
  • Carlin Romano on Exit Ghost.
  • The Westchester Library didn’t think twice about nailing Elizabeth Schaper with a 50-cent fine. Schaper had gone to the library to return a book that her mother had checked out. But since Schaper’s mother had died the week before, Schaper’s mother wasn’t exactly in the position to return the book on time. To the martinet man behind the desk, this was simply no excuse. He insisted on the two quarters. The library, spineless to the core, has not issued any public comment or public apology.
  • The AP is cutting its book review package.
  • Want your kids to read? Start them early. (I learned, no joke, to read when I was two. So perhaps there is some truth in this.)
  • Scorsese is making a film about George Harrison.

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