Last night, I opted to chill out and sleep, seeing as how I hadn’t slept for more than four hours in a week and having a percolating brain to process the copious info I collected was better than being half-asleep at the wheel. This should demonstrate to Mr. Parr that I am, in fact, not as tireless as he claims. But more BEA coverage is coming, along with catching up with the Tanenhaus Brownie Watch backlog and several other fantastic things.

In the meantime, here’s some headlines from the literary front:

• TMFTML unearths a deadly accurate depiction of today’s version of a David Sedaris essay.
• Jose Saramago’s new novel, The Intermittency of Death, will be launched in six nations in Europe and Latin America. There are no details as of yet, but the new book will have “a different style” from previous books. But my guess is that this doesn’t mean much. Given the moribund title, most likely, this means that the limited edition will have a tartan cover instead of a cloth one.
• The bookies believe that Jane Gardam‘s Old Filth will win the Orange Prize tonight. We will find out in one hour, as the prize will be announced at 1845 BST.
• Liars Club author Mary Karr says, “Oh my God! I wake up every day…and I feel like Walt Whitman. I really do. I’ve never been so happy.” We understand that “feeling like Walt Whitman” is a codeword for merging memories with fictional asides and transforming it into a well-received and best-selling “memoir.”
• Even the hallowed Library Journal was seduced by the BEA’s Dark Side (meaning stormtroopers and celebrity).
• Kate Atkinson complains about the “nastiness” of blogs. Well, if we’re so nasty, Kate, I guess we should stop praising you then, eh?
• The marketing for the next Harry Potter is very odd. Rowling will give no interviews to the UK press. And there’s a contest in which 70 youngsters between 8 and 16 will meet Rowling and “grill” her on questions about a book. While it’s doubtful that we’ll find any future Mike Wallaces among this group of urchins, I find it strange that the publisher would go out of their way to ignore journalistic and critical reception. Catering to the readers and fans is one thing, but I predict that, despite the definitive bonanza sales this book will pull in, this ostracized approach may result in a minor backlash.
• Marilyn Monroe’s black book has sold for $90,000 at an auction. Call me practical, but that seems a high price to pay for dead people’s phone numbers. Believe it or not, the book sold more than a painting that Marilyn created.
• Katie Holmes as Wonder Woman?
• “Books are not toys.” Well, you can build your toy house with Lincoln Logs. And I’ll build mine with the 150 books in my bookpile. My guess is that I’ll be having more fun than you, sir.
• Diane Johnson takes a look at several Jane Austen books in the NYRoB. Also, Jonathan Raban on Robert Lowell.

I’m riding on Americanos because of the time difference, but I hope to get some audio and additional reports up tonight. In the meantime, here’s a quick guide to coverage around the blogosphere:

• Ron Hogan weighs in through the conversational front.
• Bud Parr (who had a much swankier camera than I did and who offered a fine argument over why I should take digital photography more seriously) has pictures and impressions from the floor.
• Nathalie has captured the crazy crowd I had to storm through at the “Generation Next” panel and has her own perspective on what went down (part of an ongoing series).
• Publishers Marketplace has some good stuff from bookseller Robert Gray and Sarah Weinman.
• There are some great photos from Mary Reagan being unloaded right now.
• Mark Sarvas is still posting before his flight back to Santa Monica (and this workhorse tells me I get the Pulitzer) and has the goods on the book review embargo panel.
• MJ Rose offers a roundup.
• Cantara Christopher is also posting some quick stuff.

If there are any more floating around (or you’ve authored one), drop me an email.

One thing that the Apple geeks aren’t mentioning about the Intel chip use is something that I see as pretty important. If you were thinking of bolting from PC to Mac because of the DRM invasiveness, Apple is no longer a sanctuary. This is a bad move in more ways than one.

The headline for this USA Today BEA wrapup from Carol Memmott is “Glitterati outshine literati at BookExpo.” That’s funny. Because I saw plenty of small press booths crowded big-time on Friday and Saturday. I saw an NPR reporter talking with Dennis Loy Johnson. I saw oodles of folks converge upon the Independent Consortium party. The list goes on.

Granted, the main booths at Random House and Time Warner were crowded shitstorms. But then I didn’t come to BEA to touch John Irving’s hem. I came to find out about upcoming releases, meet people I had corresponded with, and get a better sense of how the publishing industry operated.

So far, in the reports that have been proffered, there seems to be two common reactions to BEA floating around:

1. Big popular names occluded the little guys.
2. This was a despicable showcase about the “business” of books, rather than books themselves.

In response to Point (1), I should point out that nobody is holding a gun to your head to see Billy Crystal. Nobody is forcing you to waste your time standing for about an hour in line to get two minutes with Spike Lee. BEA is really an experience that an individual makes of it. Reading Carol Memmott’s article, you would think that literary people were nowhere to be found. But the fact of the matter that it was Memmott, a reporter who purports to “cover books” for a major newspaper, who decided that Billy Crystal’s schtick, Candace Bushnell, and Tab Hunter were more important (and I’m giving Memmott a generous margin here) than getting a goofball report (as I did) about Anne Rice’s latest novel or (more nobly) finding out about the interesting novels in translation that Farrar Strauss & Giroux were profiling.

There was no shortage of interesting books at BEA to write about. And there were limitless people to talk to.

Memmott’s article then is not really about books at all, but about a journalist “reporting” who was at the autograph table — information readily available at the BEA main site — and an opportunity to hobnob with Tab Hunter about his sexuality. What then distinguishes this nonsense from a People Magazine profile?

As to Point (2), I don’t necessarily believe that thinking about the publishing of books detracts from the appreciation of books as works of art, provided that one keeps the lines of thought separate. In fact, I’d say that it’s pretty damn essential for us to be thinking about the business of publishing a little bit, if only so we can understand why certain books get published and others don’t. It is the business, as unsavory as it may be, that determines who are the midlisters, who are the A-listers, and who are left ignobly in the remainders piles.

Why then should we ignore it? If book lovers cut this area of thought from their ruminations, then in my view they are no different than the book publishers who often fail to recognize the book community. Maybe it’s the idealist in me, but I personally believe that if this chasm is bridged in some way, that if both sides make an effort to understand each other’s needs, the book climate can only be improved. Literary lovers get the books they want published and publishers discover the conduits in which to make their literary fiction sell.

Part of the problem is that publishers view the publishing business with a “winner take all’ approach. They dwell upon the Billy Crystals and the Candace Bushnells of our world who need to add rumpus rooms to their palatial Park Avenue estates. Memmott is culpable here, because her article is echoing this hard line. The duty here is for all sides to think and act more flexible about literature and to consider that sometimes a small press title or a book distributed through the streets might just turn a profit in its own right. And the duty for all journalists is to remain unseduced by celebrity bloat and realize that 30,000 people descend every year because it’s about the books, stupid.