Bookmarks: critic saves Nabokov novel, senator saves writer’s home, but nothing could save Duddy Kravitz musical

Some book-related links:

• Did a Slate critic help save Nabokov’s last novel from the flames? (Slate)
• Ontario senator helps save Joy Kogawa’s childhood home (CBC.ca)
• Duddy Kravitz: The Musical was doomed from the start – shocker! (Toronto Star)
• An interview with Larry McMurtry, indie bookseller (Downtown L.A. Scene)
• Alberto Manguel, the romantic librarian (The Guardian)
• Interview with McSweeney’s publisher (Los Angeles Times)
• Heirs of Superman co-creator get copyright share from DC Comics (Toronto Star – scroll down)
• Bonus tabloid link: Michigan comic book store owner shot during robbery (MLive.com)
• Bonus bonus tabloid link: Ginger Spice visits bookstore! With baby! Buys Roald Dahl book! (Celebrity-babies.com)

Quote of the week: “The problem with large bookstores is that they contain usually a lot of junk. My focus as a bookseller is to keep the junk out. Because good books don’t pull bad books up, bad books pull good books down.” – Larry McMurtry

Bookmarks (snobbery edition): judging someone by their books, picking the right reading wine, and more

Some book-related links:

• Judging a mate by his/her books (The New York Times)
• What wine goes with that book? (Stuff)
• Will Internet book piracy cause authors to stop writing? (Times Online)
• Settlement in sight for Greater Victoria Public Library (Times-Colonist)
• California librarian fired for alerting police to child-porn-watching patron (Los Angeles Times)
• Fiction’s famous fools (Brandenton Herald)

Bookmarks: publisher goes paperless, Eminem to tell all, and Holocaust memoir debunked

Some book-related links:

• The Hachette Book Group starts using e-books internally (New York)
• Eminem to “write” memoir (USA Today)
• Author admits Holocaust memoir was made up (The Boston Globe)
• Timothy Findley’s Pilgrim as an opera (The Globe and Mail)
• Authors and booze (The Los Angeles Times)
• Brooklyn is not a writer’s paradise, says Colson Whitehead (The New York Times)
• A look at Updike’s first (Guardian Unlimited)

Happy New Year from Quillblog

Regular blogging will resume on Monday, but until then, here’s some book-related links to tide you over:

• Benazir Bhutto’s books big in Islamabad; her final book being rushed into print (The Hindu)
• Young adults may be the biggest library users… (Associated Press)
• … but they’re not there for the books (Slashdot)
• Texas library hires a collection agency for overdue fines (Star-Telegram)
• Canadian readers fall behind the U.S., according to poll (Canada.com)
• Iranian youth use literary forum to express political frustration (Los Angeles Times)
• Kahlil Gibran-mania continues (New Yorker)
• U.K. teacher turns crops into books for Ugandan children (icCoventry)
• Action Camus: literary masterpieces as comic books (R. Sikoryak)

Bookmarks: The Golden Compass stays on one shelf, Alice Walker goes to Emory, and more

Some book-related links:

• The Golden Compass not pulled from library reading contest after complaint (The Sudbury Star)
• Alice Walker’s papers go to Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia (The Associated Press)
• A lot of nerds – and Quillbloggers (same thing, really) – are happy today: Peter Jackson will produce the Hobbit movies (The Guardian)
• U of W bookstore takes over neighbouring army surplus store (The Winnipeg Sun)
• What to do when a former president visits your bookstore (Los Angeles Times)
• Menus as literature (The New York Times)
• The tall guy from Little Britain to write kids’ books – they’ll probably be very funny but a little repetitive (BBC News)
• Edmund Wilson: king of the lit crits (The Guardian)
• Age guidelines on U.K. books (The Book Standard)

Norman Mailer remembered

The death of Norman Mailer elicited tons of reaction over the weekend. Here are just some of the obituaries, personal reminiscences, and other items – not all of it positive, obviously.

• The New York Times
• Toronto Star
• Los Angeles Times
  
• The New Yorker
• James Wolcott
• Robert Fulford in the National Post
• The Guardian‘s book blog
• Salon
• New York Post (“Literary Pug and Original Hipster Mailer, 84, Dies”)
• Christopher Hitchens in Slate

Bookmarks – Naomi Klein loved/hated by the National Post, Vincent Lam’s first draft crap, and more

Some book-related links:

• The National Post paid for excerpts from Naomi Klein’s book, then slammed her in its editorial pages – um, isn’t this usually called “editorial independence”? (The New York Times)
• Vincent Lam on bridging the doctor/writer divide and his “crap” first drafts (Entertainment Weekly)
• James Wood’s first New Yorker review – of the new Roth, Russo, Sebold, translation of the Book of Psalms! (New Yorker)
• The most-banned books of the year (Los Angeles Times)
• A guide to Philip Roth (Sunday Times)

Bookmarks – pointless publishers, reclusive authors, and more

Some book-related links:

• Why are reclusive authors so reclusive? (Los Angeles Times)
• Do publishers even, like, matter? (Huffington Post)
• Big Brother was watching Orwell, at least (Guardian)
• Should poetry be open source? (Via Negativa)
• Edward Gorey’s “Trouble with Tribbles” (Shaenon K. Garrity)

Review Roundup: William Gibson’s Spook Country

Review Roundup is a new feature on Quillblog, wherein we compile some of the critical reaction to one of the season’s big books. For our inaugural edition, we look at the reviews for William Gibson’s new novel, Spook Country, upon which a lot of ink (real and virtual) was spilled over the past couple of weeks.
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Bookmarks – Quick links

Some book-related links:

• Norma Gabler, the Texas textbook nitpicker who spent most of her life seeking out factual errors and “left-wing bias” in schoolbooks, is dead at 84. (Los Angeles Times)
• Kerouac’s On the Road – uncut and republished. (The Independent)
• Russia goes big on book advertising. (Moscow Times)
• Norman Mailer: Mr. Television. (Slate)
• The book every soldier in Iraq should read. (Harper’s)