The Telegraph looks at the long tradition of animal protagonists in literature.

The Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference is recapped for all to envy.

Melbourne, Australia is named a City of Literature by The United Nations.

The University of Delaware gushes about its new baby, a 500 year old BOOK OF HOURS.

The CIA works hard to refute Suskind’s, THE WAY OF THE WORLD.

“A writer is someone who can make a riddle out of an answer.”

-Karl Kraus

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AMERICAN SAVIOR follows the candidacy of the returned Messiah. Okay. Why not?

The New Republic publishes a reading list of books laying bare the horrors of Darfur.

A page of children’s books from January Magazine is a nice contrast to the rest of Saturday’s list, so far.

Beautifully written, but muddled, says The Christian Science Monitor of Ingrid Rowlnd’s, GIORDANO BRUNO - PHILOSOPHER HERETIC.

Murray Bail’s, THE PAGES, is worth the wait according to The Economist.

An interview with author Naomi Wolf on her book, THE END OF AMERICA: LETTER OF WARNING TO A YOUNG PATRIOT.

Do not cross your local librarian. Michigan librarian, Sally Stern-Hamilton, has been fired for publishing what she maintains is a fictionalized romp on her experiences with all manner of unpleasant library patrons.

Writer Peter Manso is indicted on what he’s claiming are trumped up gun charges in at attempt to silence him. His pending true-crime account of the murder of Christa Worthington is less-than-flattering of local law-enforcement.

Who polices the grammar police? Two men are banned from the National Parks system for correcting syntax and grammar errors on historical markers. And I don’t know whether to laugh or gnash my teeth.

Pulitzer winner, Frank McCourt, responds in essay, to Article 18 of The Human Rights Declaration.

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

And again from the who-didn’t-see-this-coming files, Michael Moore plane to write MIKE’S ELECTION GUIDE 2008.

“A prose writer gets tired of writing prose, and wants to be a poet. So he begins every line with a capital letter, and keeps on writing prose.”

-Samuel McChord Crothers

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THE SUBPRIME SOLUTION: HOW TODAY’S GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS HAPPENED, AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT, by Robert Shiller prescribes an antidote for what’s ailing our pocketbooks and our attitudes.

I don’t know about a book by New York Giants’ coach, Tom Coughlin, as he’s almost intolerable to watch - spitting and scowling on the sidelines. But then again, who would know better to tell us about A TEAM TO BELIEVE IN? And I won’t have to see him.

Cheating husband stories are a dime a dozen, but from France’s Catherine Millet, it could be something a bit more raw.

The International Herald Tribune reviews A PATH OUT OF THE DESERT: A GRAND STRATEGY FOR AMERICA IN THE MIDDLE EAST, by Brookings Institute scholar, Kenneth M. Pollack.

Shel Silverstein reads his poem, FORGOTTEN LANGUAGE.

Writers and politics - who is going to do that any better than The Atlantic? Christopher Hitchens does a then-and-now comparison of this election years’ climate with what’s led to it since the 1960s.

Church and State, Church and State, Church and… General David Petraeus takes heat for blurbing a chaplain’s book. Why not? It’s not like his job isn’t hard enough.

Hmmm. Random House didn’t think about the backlash from angry UKers when they let fly with a children’s book full of four letter words. How did it fall through their sieve? Well, they’ll just have to tighten the grid and reissue the book. Or stick to picture books and ingredients labels.  Just to be safe.

It’s not exactly ‘if it bleeds, it leads’, but who didn’t see this coming? But by Christmas?

Ugh. A sad tale from my own local paper. Pearls and swine and all, but if they can restore this rare, signed copy of GONE WITH THE WIND, it may make its legacy even more interesting.

Substitute “damn” every time you’re inclined to write “very;” your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.

-Mark Twain

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But bashing public figures is fun! Ethan S. Harris talks sense and takes the hot air out of some sails with his BEN BERNANKE’S FED: THE FEDERAL RESERVE AFTER GREENSPAN.

USA Today features the history of the cooing pest, the bombing nuisance, the ultimate urban fauna fixture in Courtney Humphries’, SUPERDOVE: HOW THE PIDGEON TOOK MANHATTAN.

Australia’s new Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, lands an open letter of requests and advice from some of the top minds Down Under. And we can all read along in, DEAR MR. RUDD. Nothing like a little pressure.

CREDIT AND BLAME, by Charles Tilly examines the nature of assigning weight to our actions.

Just in case you need a laugh, Dave Sedaris reads his essay on personal style as it applies to accessorizing on David Letterman.

The Washington Post delves into the reactions of all the players in Random House’s decision/scandal to halt THE JEWEL OF MEDINA. The organization, Stop the ACLU, has a bit of a stronger take.

Yanking 007 back and forth in time is not in the cards for a film adaptation of Sebastian Faulks’ homage, DEVIL MAY CARE, says Broccoli.

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Business Week advises and defends the incursion of technology in the publishing industry.

The Independent takes some issue with Enid Blyton’s having been voted in as Britain’s best-loved writer.

Author, Paul Theroux, sits still long enough to be interviewed by CNN on his life, travels, and of course his books.

“It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment? For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone. That is where the writer scores over his fellows: he catches the changes of his mind on the hop.”

-Vita Sackville-West

MINDING THE STORE: GREAT WRITING ABOUT BUSINESS FROM TOLSTOY TO NOW shines the spotlight on great literary passages where business is pivotal to advancing the story.

The New York Times gives the inside scoop on Debra Ginsberg’s novel of psychic ability and perfidy, THE GRIFT.

It can’t be all bad, right? David Keegan and Dennis West let us in on the upside with REALITY CHECK: THE UNREPORTED GOOD NEWS ABOUT AMERICA.

North Carolina’s News & Observer republishes a list of new paperback reviews from The New York Times.

Amazon’s Breakthrough Novel Award-winner, FRESH KILLS, is due out from Putnam this week and is opening to some pretty strong reviews.

Stephen King gives his best advice to hopefuls.

Slate defends The New American Review as the best literary magazine of all time - and does so fairly convincingly.

The Guardian covers the lead-up to the Rice/Bulwer-Lytton debate, where namesake and great-great-great grandson will defend his forebear’s maligned literary gaffe, “It was a dark and stormy night.”

Oh dear. James Hawes contends that Franz Kafka’s biographers have sanitized his legacy by omitting the literary giant’s penchant for not-so-garden-variety porn.

Craigslist ad hails forgers for literary promotion.

And AuthorScoop broadcasts an APB for the Newark thief of 850 children’s books from a truck during a pit-stop this past weekend. Somebody out there knows…

“A word is not the same with one writer as with another. One tears it from his guts. The other pulls it out of his overcoat pocket.”

-Charles Peguy

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The Palestine Chronicle reviews A DOCTOR IN GALILEE - THE LIFE AND STRUGGLE OF A PALESTINIAN IN ISRAEL.

An Indian take on Italian cooking could make for an interesting addition to a foodie’s bookshelf - ITALIAN KHANA, by Ritu Dalmia.

A Nazi concentration camp’s impact on the town nearby is a view we’ve rarely contemplated as post WWII history has spooled out. Gordon Horwitz’s, GHETTOSTADT: LODZ AND THE MAKING OF A NAZI CITY, fills the blanks in the story.

The Miami Herald gives a couple of quick nods to current fiction.

Sometimes a poem is just about heart. Jimmy Stewart, on The Late Show with Johnny Carson, reads an ode to a dog, titled, BEAU.