Most young writers can only dream of the buzz being generated by Beautiful Children (John Murray/McArthur & Company), the debut novel of Las Vegas-born, Manhattan-based author Charles Bock. In a lengthy profile in last weekend’s The New York Times Magazine, Bock is warmly welcomed to the literary establishment. The novel, about the hardscrabble lives of Las Vegas misfits and runaways, will also be featured in this weekend’s New York Times Book Review.

The article also confirms Canadian author Stephen Marche’s recent assertion that, in New York, writing is considered a “youthful activity” – something done in by tattooed, skateboard-toting, young persons. The piece begins with an anthropological-sounding depiction of these curious specimens.

You can spot them in coffee shops in Brooklyn and the West Village, clicking away on their laptops — when they’re not wasting time on Gawker, that is. You also see them at readings at Housing Works, KGB Bar and the Half King, dressed in black, leaning forward intently and sometimes venturing to ask a probing question. They idolize Lethem, Chabon, Eggers. They study The New Yorker religiously so that they can complain about how predictable the fiction is.

Bock himself is described as the embodiment of slacker/literary chic:

[His Manhattan apartment] is a classic first novelist’s apartment: leaky faucet, brick wall, rock posters, desk made of a shelf and some dinged-up filing cabinets. For a while Bock, who is now 38, a little old to be a first novelist, charged his groceries on his girlfriend’s credit card, and he rarely bought new clothing, making do with vintage rock T-shirts he collected in college. To pay the rent, he temped, worked as a researcher and a legal proofreader and ghost-edited Shaquille O’Neal’s autobiography, “Shaq Talks Back.” He also did a very unhappy stint as a rewrite man at a supermarket tabloid. But mostly he avoided steady work whenever he could, much to his parents’ concern.

Besides sticking it to his parents, Bock had some deeply personal and artistic reasons for writing Beautiful Children, which was 10 years in the making. In an interview with Q&Q contributor Sarah Weinman (appearing in eMusic Magazine), Bock explains why he kept at it:

But writing, as hard as it can be, can also be ecstatically fun. I entertained myself tremendously with this book. It’s very dark, yes, but it’s fun as hell. It quotes kung fu movies, Iron Maiden, Suicidal Tendencies. Lot of good jokes, interesting intellectual questions.

A Brooklyn woman has won $15,000 in start-up cash from the Brooklyn Public Library for her design of an independent neighbourhood bookstore. Her plan is so crazy it just might work: “a small bookstore with a cafe, a wine bar, lots of wood and lots of brick,” she told the Daily News.

Giant bookstore chains such as Borders and Barnes & Noble don’t intimidate Jessica Stockton-Bagnulo one bit. She’s dreaming of someday opening a small, successful Brooklyn bookshop.

“It’s not impossible for an independent bookstore to survive, even when large chains are nearby,” said Stockton-Bagnulo, 29, of Park Slope.

A Canadian connection is that Stockton-Bagnulo, AKA The Written Nerd, is the events co-ordinator at McNally Robinson’s Manhattan location, which opened in 2004. It looks like the Winnipeg-based indie retailer is facing stiff competition – even from within.

Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk’s life has been threatened – not for the first time – by “an ultra-nationalist gang,” reports The Guardian.

According to reports in the Turkish press, the author of international bestsellers including My Name is Red was targeted as part of a campaign to sow chaos in preparation for a military coup, scheduled for 2009.

The suspects have now been remanded in custody, among them retired military officers and the lawyer Kemal Kerincisz. The latter has been instrumental in the pursuit of a series of writers and intellectuals through the courts, filing cases against Pamuk himself as well as the novelists Elif Shafak and Perihan Magden and the murdered journalist Hrant Dink.

A year ago, Pamuk cancelled a planned German book tour after he was publicly threatened by Yasin Hayal, the murderer of Turkish-Armenian editor Hrant Dink. However, the report fails to mention whether Hayal is among – or connected to – the 13 men being prosecuted. In fact, not a whole lot is known about the case.

The charges brought against the suspects are not yet known. The investigation is being carried out under the terms of a law restricting media coverage.

“This could be a big development,” continued [Istanbul’s Free Expression Initiative spokesperson Sanar] Yurdatapan, suggesting that because figures very high in the military establishment have been connected with such groups it remains to be seen whether the cases will be brought to trial. “We are afraid to have hope.”