From the Barnes & Noble “Tagged” description:

Molly talks with David Baldacci about his latest page-turner, True Blue:

Jessica Mann rattled a lot of cages with her announcement that she intends to quit reviewing crime fiction because of its pervasive “sexist misogyny”.

But Examiner’s Michelle Kerns says Ms. Mann has it backwards:

Ms. Mann is right about one thing — modern crime fiction is bathed in sexism. She’s just off on the gender. It’s not women these books are sexist against — it’s men.

She goes on to point to three basic stereotypes foisted upon male crime fiction characters:

1. The Useless, Shiftless, Gutless Male. This will be a secondary character who is either too weak to stand up for himself or excessively blustery and abusive because he is all too aware of his inferiority.

2. The Sensitive Inspector. This is reserved for detectives, detective inspectors, policemen, etc. I’ve ranted about this at length before. These lawmen are moody, broody, terribly sensitive, unlucky in love, deferential to women, and spend time reading the classics, listening to obscure music, and quoting Shakespeare over the autopsy table.

3. The Nasty Killer. He may occasionally indulge in a bit of murder that involves children, elderly people, or men, but his favorite target is women. Especially young women, whom he likes to mentally and physically torture in any number of weird and inexcusable ways.

Check out the entire piece here and join in the discussion in the comments section.

John Yates presents a critical appreciation of Lenore Kandel, who passed away last week. (Divine Animal)

Will Barnes & Noble’s Nook hurt the store’s paperback sales? (MyCE)

Olivier Lamm chats it up with Lydia Millet. (The Rumpus)

John Sutherland looks at the ever-changing landscape of literary tastes. (The Guardian)

Hyperion rethinks the release date of two books by James Arthur Ray, what with the dead bodies and all. (Publishers Weekly)

Amazon blog counts down the first batch of the best books of 2009. (Omnivoracious)

Hannah Davies unravels the mystery of the Russian Booker Prize. (Guardian Books Blog)

JK Evanczuk offers up ‘5 Reasons Why the Novel is Not a Dying Medium’. (Lit Drift)

Alice Murno reveals her recent battle with cancer at a Toronto literary event. (CANOE)

Jason Boog tells NaNoWriMo authors how they can get a free bound copy of their novel. (GalleyCat)

R.I.P. Robert Taylor, book and art critic. (The Boston Globe)

On this day in 1922, Virginia Woolf’s Jacob’s Room was published. (Today in Literature)

“I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than of cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs.”

-Joseph Addison

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The Guardian rather skewers Phillip Roth for THE HUMBLING.

But a collection of pop-culture essays by Chuck Klosterman, EATING THE DINOSAUR, fares far better in The Wall Street Journal.

Louis Begley, according to The Washington Post, makes a mostly satisfactory case for WHY THE DREYFUS AFFAIR MATTERS.

And Library Journal has a preview of upcoming fiction and nonfiction releases.

From the St. Francis College YouTube description:

Author Rick Moody (Garden State, The Ice Storm) is interviewed by St. Francis College Student Noel T. Jones after his reading for the Walt Whitman Writers Series:

Norma Fox Mazer remembered. (Times Argus Online)

Stephen King “finally taking the plunge” into the world comics with American Vampire. (The Daily Beast)

Powell’s Books president Michael Powell talks to Amy Hsuan about the book price wars. (OregonLive.com)

Was John Keats done in by medical malpractice? (Telegraph)

Headline of the day: “John Irving on John Irving on John Irving”. (The Globe and Mail)

Amazon taking the Kindle to the PC. (Publishers Weekly)

Carol Rumens returns with a heavyweight “Poem of the Week” (plus commentary): “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”. (Guardian Books Blog)

Rozalia Jovanovic recaps the New Yorker Festival. (The Rumpus)

Quality Systems consultant and writer David McKenzie takes 2009 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, writing the world’s worst opening sentence to an imaginary novel. (GalleyCat)

On this day in 1822, seventeen-year-old Hans Christian Andersen enrolled in school alongside eleven-year-olds as part of his cobbled and ill-fated formal education. (Today in Literature)

“If the English language made any sense, lackadaisical would have something to do with a shortage of flowers.”

-Doug Larson

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Ms. Kingsolver is coming to Asheville.  I shall be getting tickets if at all possible (update: I stopped writing this and bought a ticket - yay me), to see her speak at the launch event for her latest novel.  Here’s Publishers Weekly’s starred review when they made THE LACUNA their ‘Pick of the Week’ back in August.

Theodore Roosevelt’s ecology efforts seem to have recaptured everyone’s imagination lately.  Timothy Egan adds fuel to THE BIG BURN.

The Troubles of Northern Ireland have their aftershocks and continuances in Stuart Neville’s debut, THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST.

ANGEL TIME: THE SONGS OF THE SERAPHIM SERIES, VOLUME 1, by Anne Rice, gets a quick warm welcome in Oklahoma as the other side of the coin to her Vampire Chronicles.

Author Magazine chats with The Hidden Man author David Ellis:

Robert McCrum examines “the final twist” in the saga of Nabokov, as the late author’s controversial final work is about to be published. (The Observer)

Nigel Farndale laments the cultural appetite for celebrity novels… (The Telegraph)

… while ghostwriter Andrew Crofts celebrates the boom time for cranking them out. (The Telegraph)

Donna Trussell goes off on the “Literary Industrial Complex”. (Politics Daily)

Crime novelist and critic Jessica Mann refuses to review any more books because of violence and misogyny. (The Telegraph)

Sarah Churchwell explores the impact of the editor’s touch in the works of Hemingway and Carver. (The Guardian)

David Hayles looks back at the “strange life and death” of Conan creator Robert E. Howard. (Times Online)

The ‘Jacket Copy’ folks dig through the archives for an interesting 1998 profile of John Irving. (LATimes)

Jennifer Schuessler goes around the industry to wrap up some of the latest book news. (NYTimes)

On this day in 1854, the famous battle at Balaclava, in the Crimea, was fought, inspiring Tennyson to write “The Charge of the Light Brigade”. (Today in Literature)

“To see things in the seed, that is genius.”

-Lao-Tzu

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James McManus follows the trail from Chinese dominoes to the online tables and tells us how it all came about in COWBOYS FULL: THE STORY OF POKER.

In THE MEANING OF MATTHEW, his mother, Judy Shepherd, keeps her son’s memory alive.

John Irving, no stranger to accolades, collects a few more for LAST NIGHT IN TWISTED RIVER.

High recommendations over at HuntingtonNews.net for Richard LeMieux’s BREAKFAST AT SALLY’S: SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO BECOME HOMELESS TO FIND OUT WHO YOUR REAL FRIENDS ARE.

From the DailyBeast YouTube description:

Is the novel a dying animal? In this segment from TheDailyBeast.com’s Web series, ‘The Beast Bar,’ Philip Roth tells Tina Brown it certainly is.

I hope he learned something: Philip Roth takes the “Philip Roth’s Newark” tour. (MOBYLIVES)

On the eve of his 30th book, Roth discusses “depression, marriage, acting and surprising his readers”. (Wall Street Journal)

Uh oh… Bones don’t belong to poet. (AP)

Patricia Cornwell’s $40 million fortune… gone. (Digital Journal)

Two university students “write” a book of Twitter entries that “summarize and satirize” literary works. (Reuters)

Happy 30th anniversary to the London Review of Books. (Financial Times)

Ron Hogan looks at what happens when the apprentice becomes the master. (GalleyCat)

On this day in 1958, Raymond Chandler began (but never finished) his last novel, Poodle Springs. (Today in Literature)

“I read because one life is not enough”

-Richard Peck

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Have good fun with, BOILERPLATE: HISTORY’S MECHANICAL MARVEL.  InDenverTimes.com thinks you should.

Henry C. Lee is a reputable source, so there should be much of interest in, THE REAL WORLD OF FORENSIC SCIENCE: REKNOWNED EXPERTS REVEAL WHAT IT TAKES TO SOLVE CRIMES.

Again, the title will bring its audience: DIRT IS GOOD FOR YOU: TRUE STORIES OF SURVIVING PARENTHOOD.

I own this book.  Or more specifically, my husband does.  It was a gift from me to him.  So, it’s not that new.  But it’s his favorite, if that counts for anything: EVERY HAND REVEALED, by Gus Hansen.

From the GalleyCat description:

GalleyCat had the opportunity to speak Celebrity/Author, George Wendt, best known for his role as Norm in the hit television series Cheers. He spoke with us about his new book, Drinking with George (Simon & Schuster).

Simon Elegant profiles “China’s literary bad boy”, Han Han. (TIME)

William J. Quirk parses F. Scott Fitzgerald’s tax returns for insights into the author’s lifestyle. (The American Scholar)

Suzanne Munshower makes a passionate case for the preservation of the physical book. (Guardian Books Blog)

Morgan Von Ancken looks at some of the tougher adaptations Hollywood has undertaken. (Lit Drift)

Ron Hogan explores Victor Lodato’s tale of two dust jackets. (GalleyCat)

Catie Disabato chats it up with Jonathan Zittrain, author of The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It. (The Rumpus)

Natalia O’Hara looks at the life and (phenomenal) work of Amos Oz. (Prague Post)

R.I.P. Theodore R. Sizer, educator and author. (Washington Post)

R.I.P. Lenore Kandel, counterculture poet. (San Francisco Chronicle)

On this day in 1939, prolific western writer Zane Grey died. (Today in Literature)

“Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to popular belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young.”

-William Somerset Maugham

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