From the YouTube description:

Christine von der Linn Discusses Highlights of the October 16 Auction of MODERN LITERATURE: FEATURING AMERICANS IN PARIS AND AFTER.

The Auction features the “Lost Generation” of American writers who went to Paris during the 1920s and 30s after WWI. The sale includes books written in Paris and throughout their careers, as well as uncommon related material.

Among highlights are an inscribed and signed first edition of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s All the Sad Young Men, 1926; a large section of Hemingway titles, such as a first limited edition of In Our Time, 1924, and a full run of the scarce Lost Generation Journal, 1973-83. There is also a first edition of Transition Stories, a collection of the best pieces from the first year of the journal, signed by editors Eugene Jolas and Robert Sage, 1929. This section of the sale also includes Kay Boyle, Malcolm Cowley, John Dos Passos, Robert McAlmon, Gertrude Stein, Glenway Wescott, and Edmund Wilson.

A choice selection of general modern literature includes a bright first edition of Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles, Garden City, 1950. Also of note are four lots of signed material by Saul Bellow including a 32-page typed manuscript of A Silver Dish, heavily annotated by the author, 1979, and an edited proof copy of Herzog, 1964.

For more information please visit www.swanngalleries.com

Part 1 of 2:

A look inside poets’ lives and deaths through their letters.

Booker winner fires his agent.

The Swedes love La Clezio.

Times Online details the final conversation between Pat Kavanaugh and her former lover, novelist Jeanette Winterson.

Yeats’ poem “Easter 1916″ fetches $11,400 at auction.

On the lighter side… William Carlos Williams: bad roommate.

Science News Magazine has mostly good things to say about Charles Seife’s, SUN IN A BOTTLE: THE STRANGE HISTORY OF FUSION AND THE SCIENCE OF WISHFUL THINKING. Whatever the complaints, it’s a great title.

A YEAR IN TIBET is given an ‘A’ by Adelaide’s Independent Weekly.

USA Today jumps the gun on the last few months of 2008 and sends up a ‘best of’ list. Wormy early birds…

The Economist features a look at ISRAEL AND THE FAMILY OF NATIONS: THE JEWISH NATION-STATE AND HUMAN RIGHTS.

How the literary web enhances the reading experience.

An inside look at Obama’s powerhouse of a literary agent.

Winners announced in first-ever Grinzane For Africa Prize.

Ian McEwan adds his name to a 200,000-strong petition in support of Roberto Saviano, condemning the threats of the Neapolitan mafia against the author.

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any grimmer, Phillip and Alice Shabecoff detail POSIONED PROFITS: THE TOXIC ASSAULT ON OUR CHILDREN.

But on the lighter side of awful, try Timothy English’s, SOUNDS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT: STOLEN MELODIES, RIPPED OFF RIFFS, AND THE SECRET HISTORY OF ROCK AND ROLL.

Every now and again, it’s such a pleasure to read a review gushing with praise.  I do hope SUNDAY MORNINGS, CROWNING GLORIES lives up to Gather.com’s opinion of it.

Publisher’s Weekly has a page of web exclusive reviews for us, which I think is very kind of them.

And some kids’ books too.

A two-part interview with the author on his new book, The Hour I First Believed:

Part 1:

 
Part 2:

David Cronenberg writes first 60 pages of a novel, doesn’t know exactly what it is; publishers already expressing interest.

Authors pay homage to David Foster Wallace at New York University memorial service.

Bono to become New York Times writer.

Annie Proulx quits Wyoming.

Alan Bennet donates his entire archive to the Bodleian.

R.I.P. Dan Harvey

PoliticalAffairs.net runs with the tagline - Marxist Thought Online and here’s what they’ve got to say about Coca Cola whistleblower, Mark Thomas’ BELCHING OUT THE DEVIL.

Everybody seems to love Michael Connelly’s latest, THE BRASS VERDICT.

A bowling book!  A bowling book!  Look!  It’s a bowling book.  And they say, BOWLING ACROSS AMERICA - 50 STATES IN RENTED SHOES is terrific.

The New Republic looks at the poetry of Durs Grunbein and his new release, ASHES FOR BREAKFAST: SELECTED POEMS.

From the Metacafe description:

We ask our panel of experts and veteran parents, What is your favorite bedtime book to read to your kids? They responded from the classic to the modern to the wiseass. What is your favorite bedtime book? This video is brought to you by BabyBjorn. Distributed by Tubemogul.

DadLabs Ep. 274 The Lounge - Experts Pick Nighty-Night Winners - Awesome video clips here

…with apologies for my absence yesterday…

Jordanian writers calling for the release of Islam Samhan, who was arrested earlier this week for “insulting Islam” by including phrases from the Koran in his love poetry.

Allegations arise of anti-Semitic literature at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Russia-InfoCentre presents a look back at the Golden Age of Russian Literature.

Rawi Hage’s Cockroach continues to make waves in literary competitions.

Newly installed US Poet Laureate Kay Ryan explains her approach to the craft.

Pat Kavanaugh remembered.

There’s still more to dish over and about John Lennon’s complicated life - to the tune of 851 pages more.  Rolling Stone looks at Philip Norman’s, JOHN LENNON: THE LIFE.

Computerworld.com smiles on PRAGMATIC THINKING AND LEARNING: REFACTORING YOUR WETWARE by Andy Hunt.  Holy crap.  Your ‘wetware’ is your brain.

Bob Dylan - it’s not just for dusty hippies anymore.  Paul Rodgers illustrates a picture book version of FOREVER YOUNG.

It could be considered a conflict of interest, but Book Page has put out its 20th anniversary retrospective issue and reviewed it too.

Rolling Stone Magazine reviews Eminem’s new memoir, THE WAY I AM. Good thing, too. I was just wondering about him.

US Presidents in wartime could be a timely thing to brush up on. Handily, James M. McPherson has diagrammed a chapter in history and its leader in TRIED BY WAR: ABRAHAM LINCOLN AS COMMANDER IN CHIEF.

Shooting food doesn’t always mean you’re hunting, as you’ll see in FOOD STYLING FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS by Linda Bellingham and Jean Ann Bybee.

There’s a neat search and find for Halloween book for kiddies profiled in The Trades out of Oregon - CAN YOU SEE WHAT I SEE ON A SCARY NIGHT? by Walter Wick.

And John Grogan gets his memoir, THE LONGEST TRIP HOME, stroked by The New York Times.

From last November: Fran Lebowitz introduces then-Poet Laureate Charles Simic, who then presents the 2007 National Book Award in Poetry for “Time and Materials.”

Jordanian police arrest poet for insulting Islam.

Technology Review looks back at the legacy of science fiction author Algis Budrys.

Irish brothers win Ted Hughes poetry prize.

Nobel Literature Prize codenames revealed.

An Ottawa poet gives a First Nations health centre half of a $1,500 poetry prize named for a 19th-century civil servant who advocated sending aboriginal children to residential schools.

R.I.P. Pat Kavanaugh

“Writing ought either to be the manufacture of stories for which there is a market demand — a business as safe and commendable as making soap or breakfast foods — or it should be an art, which is always a search for something for which there is no market demand, something new and untried, where the values are intrinsic and have nothing to do with standardized values.”

- Willa Cather

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A page of fiction reviews from Publisher’s Weekly is guaranteed to be better than a tack on your chair.

Library Journal had a full-on tutorial and reviews page of graphic novels and I missed it. Perhaps now I’ll know whether or not the stuff is for me. Stay tuned.

THE WORLD IS WHAT IT IS: THE AUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHY OF V.S. NAIPUL gets the two page treatment from The Atlantic.

Foodies rejoice, for here be new treats from far away lands. Far away relative to Jerusalem, that is - THE BOOK OF NEW ISRAELI FOOD is here.

An interview with the author about The Hero of Ages, the final installment of the Mistborn series:

NaNoWriMo is right around the corner.

Brad Pitt to team up with Warner Brothers to produce Homer’s The Odyssey.

James Hynes presents a list of spooky Halloween reading.

Kids get up close and personal with children’s laureate Michael Rosen.

A Wellfleet family parts with a home rife with literary history.

The Economist found Paul Preston a bit slanted towards English, when a bit of translation might have served the book well, but it will still hold interest for many - WE SAW SPAIN DIE: FOREIGN CORRESPONDANTS IN THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR.

The Arizona Republic weighs in on what’s a notable read these days.

Thomas Keneally’s recounts the writing of SCHINDLER’S LIST in his new memoir, SEARCHING FOR SCHINDLER.

The Chicago Sun Times isn’t thrilled with Sarah Vowell’s account of our Puritan forebears in THE WORDY SHIPMATES.