Author, Will Self, weathers a harrowing moment as his house falls apart while his family’s inside. (London Even Standard)

Newsflash: authors aren’t as interesting as the stories they make up. (The Atlantic)

…and sometimes the stories they make up are too long. (The Daily Beast)

But still, meeting your favorite author can be a good story in itself. (The Huffington Post)

Book Expo America launches in a week and a half. Get ready. (publishingtrends.com)

A slow economy makes liberals write books. (The Washington Post)

How to run a railroad, er, bookstore, according to (Inside Higher Ed)

Josie Leavitt mourns the stacks of printed publisher catalogs she used to get. (Publishers Weekly)

Neil Barofsky coordinated TARP, the bank bailout. Now he’s gonna tell us all about it in a book. (Associated Press)

Illustrations infuse classics with new life. (The National)

How Literary Festivals have become tools of social change in Asia. (twocircles.net)

Author, Henry Denker, dies at age 99. RIP. (The New York Times)

“On this day in 1910, Margaret Wise Brown was born. Included in the over one hundred children’s books she published — even more came out after her early death — are The Runaway Bunny (1942) and Goodnight Moon (1947). Brown’s writing philosophy developed through her association with Lucy Sprague Mitchell’s ‘here-and-now’ approach to children’s literature…” (Today In Literature)

The Orange Prize will no longer be Orange after the mobile phone company pulls out of the book biz after seventeen years. (The Bookseller)

There’s grumbling amongst the professors over opening up Oxford’s Bodleian Library. (The Telegraph)

Researchers suggest that YA books have a rating system for content. (GalleyCat)

Hit ‘em where it hurts? School’s arts budget slashed after receiving a $15,000 fine over soda in the bookstore. (The Consumerist)

The Guardian weighs books reviews - Amazon vs. newspaper. (The Guardian)

Houghton Mifflin all set to file for bankruptcy. (Publishers Weekly)

U.S. publishers enjoy a 333% increase in foreign books sales, thanks to ebooks. (Digital Book World)

New York Yiddish bookstore finds a new home. (The New York Times)

“On this day in 1967 Langston Hughes died, aged sixty-five. Hughes was one of the most influential and respected of Black American voices in the middle decades of the century, writing prolifically in many genres, and almost exclusively on one theme. In a 1926 essay entitled ‘The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,’ Hughes announced that theme this way: We younger Negro artists now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad…” (Today In Literature)

James Patterson gifts $80,000 to his alma mater, Manhattan College. (New York Daily News)

Literary censorship still plagues Tunisia. (Tunisia Live)

Alan Hollinghurst talks books and the Booker with (The Guardian)

The artwork of Charles Bukowski at (BookTryst)

Here are 10 Great Books About Cycling, courtesy of (The Christian Science Monitor)

Quill & Quire recaps the Atlantic Book Awards. (Quill & Quire)

Esquire Magazine is set to publish an ebook of short stories for men. (No pink covers allowed, apparently.) (The New York Times)

Scottish author, Doug Johnstone, scales up the Amazon charts. (The Scotsman)

More than four years after Randy Pausch gave The Last Lecture, his widow, Jai Pausch, pens a memoir and talks with (USA Today)

“On this day in 1688 Alexander Pope was born in London, the only child of middle-aged, Catholic parents. This was the year of the Glorious Revolution, and the broom that swept out Catholic James II and swept in Constitutional reform also brought new restrictions and suspicions upon English Catholics. Barred from politics, and from attending university in pursuit of such careers as law and medicine — barred even from living within ten miles of London — Pope began as an outsider and seemed destined to remain so…” (Today In Literature)

Charles Baxter takes the REA Award for the Short Story. (reaaward.org)

When one author has an affair with another author’s wife, the public gets two novels out of it. (The New York Daily News)

The Carnegie Medal finalists are announced. (carnegie.org)

… while the American Library Association makes way a new award for adult fiction. (St. Louis Today)

Is Harry Potter good enough for literature studies? (The Telegraph)

Two California newspapers debut a dedicated children’s book review section. (Publishers Weekly)

Twitter bookclubs are explained at (The New York Times)

Harlan Ellison re-releases some of his early, pulpier work. (GalleyCat)

Library Journal features 26 graphic novels relevant to June, LGBT Pride Month. (Library Journal)

Mexico City’s Benjamin Franklin Library turns 70. (state.gov)

Carlos Fuentes is lauded and remembered by the literary community and the world in a state funeral. (The Telegraph)

“On this day in 1593 Queen Elizabeth’s Privy Council issued a warrant for the arrest of Christopher Marlowe on charges of spreading ‘blasphemous and damnable opinions.’ Five days earlier Marlowe’s roommate and fellow playwright, Thomas Kyd, had also been arrested on similar charges; under torture (apparently a set piece on the rack called ’scraping the conscience’), Kyd had claimed that the offending documents in his possession were in fact Marlowe’s…” (Today In Literature)

The Atlantic profiles the work of Pulitzer-winner, Marilynne Robinson. (The Atlantic)

Publishers Weekly goes back in time to fix their 1998 list of the 100 best novels. (Publishers Weekly)

Paris as a literary focal point is the topic today at (The Guardian)

Agent, Rachelle Gardner, scores a hit with her blogpost 7 Bad Habits of Successful Authors. (rachellegardner.com)

Journalist, Adam Piore, says that, despite the trials of magazines and print media, it’s still an exciting time for nonfiction narratives. (The Huffington Post)

Will Ellsworth-Jones recounts the research hunt for the street artist, Banksy. (The Telegraph)

Salon explores the social potential of the suggestibility of readers. (Salon)

Whatever the may think of 50 SHADES OF GRAY, these prominent literary groups don’t hold with censorship. (GalleyCat)

Children’s author, Jean Craighead George, dies at age 92. RIP. (School Library Journal)

“On this day in 1873 Dorothy Richardson was born. Pilgrimage, Richardson’s life-long experimental novel, began appearing in 1915, at about the time Joyce and Proust were engaged in similar experiments. While Richardson may or may not be’ the genius they forgot’ (the subtitle of one biography), her writing was the first to be described as ’stream of consciousness,’…” (Today In Literature)

Alexandria, Virginia (my hometown) takes honors as the ‘Most Well-Read City in America’. (GalleyCat)

Shortlist.com culls 30 quotes from Stephen King books and lets you vote on your favorite. (shortlist.com)

Canteen Magazine drops writers and photographers into an artistically lit room. Fancy. (The San Fransisco Chronicle)

Hinton’s THE OUTSIDERS becomes an ebook. (The Los Angeles Times)

‘Ecstatic Alphabet/Heaps of Language’ exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art is previewed at (Salon)

The Guardian looks after John Updike’s literary legacy. (The Guardian)

Andrew G. Bodnar was sentenced (by a real judge) to write a book. Now he’s done his time behind keyboards. (The Wall Street Journal)

Here’s the funny and tangled flowchart of how a book is made. (The Huffington Post)

Books-a-Million’s sexy front table display doesn’t necessarily go over all that well in Tennessee. (The Tennessean)

Author, Carlos Fuentes, dies at age 83. RIP. (The New York Times)

“On this day in 1939 Nathanael West’s The Day of the Locust was published. Although now ranked with F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Last Tycoon as one of the best novels about Hollywood, and on the Modern Library’s Top 100 of the century list, The Day of the Locust had mixed reviews when it came out…” (Today In Literature)

Twitter lied. Gabriel García Márquez isn’t dead. Hooray! (The Guardian)

HarperCollins takes the Publisher of the Year prize at the Bookseller Industry Awards. (The Bookseller)

Johannes Gutenberg did not invent the printing press. Have a look. (io9)

So, did all that funny stuff really happen to Dave Sedaris? And does it matter if it didn’t? (The Washington Post)

Iain Banks has a chat with (The Telegraph)

The New Yorker debuts a new book-discussion blog - Page Turner. (The New Yorker)

… and one of its first guests is Salman Rushdie. (The New Yorker)

Ebooks are gaining traction in the UK. (The Bookseller)

The classics don’t hold sway over modern writers, claims study. (The Guardian)

Journalist and literary hoaxster, Mike McGrady, dies at age 78. RIP. (The New York Times)

“On this day in 1855 Walt Whitman registered the title Leaves of Grass with the clerk of the United States District Court, New York. The first edition was published seven weeks later, on or about July 4th. Over the next 36 years, ‘Walt Whitman, an American, one of the roughs, a kosmos,’ would revise and add to the original twelve poems, publishing seven more editions.” (Today In Literature)

Here’s a preview of the half-dozen finalists for the 2012 Nebula Awards. (The Millions)

MaineCrimeWriters.com uses the novels of Paul Doiron to demonstrate how to judge a book by its cover. (mainecrimewriters.com)

If you’re gonna challenge a book, here’s a collection of suggestions that aren’t 50 SHADES OF GRAY. (flavorwire)

Thanks to ereaders, instant access to books renders one-book-a-year authors a bunch of slackers. (The New York Times)

Verizon doesn’t want to get involved in pirate-hunting. (cnet.com)

Jeff Himmelman is taking it on the chin for his authorized biography of Ben Bradlee. He looks to defend himself at (The Daily Beast)

At age 95, Kirk Douglas gets to work on book about ‘Spartacus’. (wrcbtv.com)

Hilary Mantel divulges her opinion of the Catholic Church. (The Telegraph)

Fair use ruling in Georgia State University case angers publishers and authors. (The Chronicle of Higher Education)

Eight experts award their nods from the Pulitzer list, since the Pulitzer people didn’t. (The New York Times)

“On this day in 1962 Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange was published. Although many do not think it his best novel — the vote seems to go to Earthly Powers (1980) — A Clockwork Orange made Burgess internationally famous, largely due to the controversy surrounding the 1971 Stanley Kubrick film…” (Today In Literature)

Peter Swaab remembers Edward Lear in (The Telegraph)

Will Schwalbe and his mother - a book club of two. A wonderful Mother’s day tribute in (The New York Times)

Hemingway’s mom wasn’t a fan of THE SUN ALSO RISES. And how. (BookRiot)

Chicago names a bridge after Stud Terkel. (The Chicago Sun-Times)

Mark Twain on plagiarism. (brainpickings.org)

Proceeds from the sale of THE FAMILY CORLEONE will sit in escrow while Paramount Pictures and Mario Puzo’s estate wrangle the details. (The San Fransisco Chronicle)

The Guardian compiles The 10 Best Historical Novels in pictures. (The Guardian)

“On this day in 1940 Bruce Chatwin was born. Even leaving out the literary controversy and the personality cult, Chatwin’s life has dramatic scope — middle-class Birmingham teenager to Sotheby’s clerk, to art-world star, to ultima thule by backpack, to a handful of best-sellers, a burst of fame, and death at forty-eight…” (Today In Literature)

Hamas pulls the plug on the Palestine Festival of Literature. (The New York Daily News)

Matthew DeLuca culls a few of the best bits from YOURS IN TRUTH: A PERSONAL PORTRAIT OF BEN BRADLEE, by Jeff Himmelman. (The Daily Beast)

London’s new literary festival, Words in the Park, is next weekend, so you’d better get packing. (The Telegraph)

The wonderful Hilary Mantel sits down with (The Scotsman)

John Updike’s childhood home in Pennsylvania is set to become a museum. (GalleyCat)

The odd chair that is the writer’s place at the family table is diagrammed at (The New York Times)

Writer/illustrator, Howard Cruse, shares one of his prized bits of memorabilia: a wonderful and personal letter of encouragement from Dr. Seuss. (lettersofnote.com)

A paw through Federico García Lorca’s things reveals the probable identity of the object of his poetic affection. (The Guardian)

Jeanette Winterson does a stint as Professor Winterson at the University of Manchester. (The Telegraph)

“On this day in 1883 Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi was published. Much of the book had been printed as a series of articles in The Atlantic eight years earlier. These reminiscences had been popular — they ‘made the ice-water in my pitcher turn muddy,’ said William Dean Howells…” (Today In Literature)

Mary Higgins Clark has a chat with (The New York Times)

Norwich, England is UNESCO’s City of Literature. (The Guardian)

… while Colin Grant has a ramble and talk with (The Telegraph)

Tim Parks examines ‘Fear and Literature’ in (The New York Review of Books)

Sleep with your books: bookshelves married to beds. (BookRiot)

The LA Times wonders what new mother’s are reading. (The Los Angeles Times)

Author, Charles Baxter, takes the $30,000 prize for the 2012 REA Award. (The Washington Post)

Anthony Hororwitz weighs in on the book blurbing game for (The Guardian)

Harry Potter and Kindle team up for an interactive reading experience (and a lucrative one for both.) (GalleyCat)

The buddy comedy - animal style. (The New York Times)

“On this day in 2001 Douglas Adams died of a heart attack in a Santa Barbara gym, aged forty-nine. He had moved to California to be more involved in negotiations with Hollywood producers on the movie version of his Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a frustrating process which Adams likened to ‘trying to grill a steak by having a succession of people coming into the room and breathing on it.’…” (Today In Literature)

Joe Bovino’s FIELD GUIDE TO CHICKS OF THE UNITED STATES is shortlisted for The Worst Book Ever by (The Huffington Post)

But there are better awards. Terry Pratchett, John Lanchester, and Sue Townsend are among those in the running for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize For Comic Fiction. (The Telegraph)

The Palestine Festival of Literature draws Gaza security forces over author event. (ahramonline)

When literature meets cartoons, a new thing entirely is born. (The Wall Street Journal)

Before he was POTUS, he had opinions on T.S. Eliot’s poery and politics. Here’s an excerpt from David Maraniss’s BARACK OBAMA: THE STORY. (The New York Times)

Ebooks on British radar: they’re on the way. (BBC)

How the changing publishing landscape may call writers to view their fans in a different light. (The Guardian)

Jonny from Waterstones has the shine taken off his book-arranging hobby. (WaterstonesOxfordStreet)

It took WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE more than 40 years to crack the bestseller list at (USA Today)

The Huffington Post profiles budding book critic, 16 year old, Robby Auld. (The Huffington Post)

“On this day in 1907 Kenneth Grahame wrote the first (or the first extant) of a series of letters to his son, Alastair, describing the Toad, Rat, Mole and Badger adventures that eventually became The Wind in the Willows…” (Today In Literature)

From the Red-Faced Files: author, Jonah Goldberg, has to admit he’s never been nominated for a Pulitzer, even though his bios keep claiming he has. (msnbc.com)

Ian Fleming wanted Alfred Hitchcock in on the Bond developments. (GalleyCat)

President Obama condensed a few characters into one. Is that cheating in an autobiography? (book guys)

Someone pinched George Gershwin’s private letters. Now his biographer’s daughter sues to block their sale. (The New York Daily News)

Jules Feiffer remembers his dear old friend, Maurice Sendak. (The Hollywood Reporter)

The Telegraph remembers the man through his quotes. (The Telegraph)

And Sendak is also on the brain over at (The New York Times)

Dean Koontz weighs in on the ‘Odd Thomas’ film adaptation. (DeanKoontz.com)

Study shows that fictional characters have real life influence. (GalleyCat)

One word titles are up for discussion at (The Millions)

Journalist, Daniel Rapoport, dies at age 79. RIP. (The Washington Post)

“On this day in 1918 Lytton Strachey’s Eminent Victorians was published. Its four essays — on Cardinal Manning, Florence Nightingale, Dr. Thomas Arnold and General Gordon — are credited with introducing a new form of biography, as intended. ‘Who does not know them,’ Strachey wrote of the typical tome, ‘with their ill-digested masses of material, their slipshod style, their tone of tedious panegyric, their lamentable lack of selection, of detachment, of design?’…” (Today In Literature)

And when he came to the place where the Wild Things are…

Maurice Sendak, beloved author and illustrator of WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE, among others, has died. He was 83. (The New York Times)

Sendak spoke with The Atlantic back in September on his latest, BUMBLE ARDY. (Note: do have a look at today’s Afternoon Viewing) (The Atlantic)

He was also pretty funny last year at (The Globe and Mail)

The British Library in London hosts a wonderful exhibit of England in literature. (The Guardian)

Toni Morrison has a habit of grabbing her readers by the throat. Here’s a list of 10 such moments, courtesy of (BookRiot)

The Children’s Choice Awards were handed out in gala NYC style. (Publishers Weekly)

Poet, Nathalie Handal, has a chat with the (bookslut)

The Telegraph has a sneak peek at BRING UP THE BODIES, Hilary Mantel’s followup to her Booker-winner, WOLF HALL. (The Telegraph)

LitKicks profiles Comte de Lautréamont. Don’t know him? That’s why they wrote the article. (LitKicks)

Cartoonist, Alison Bechdel, does memoir graphic-style. (The San Fransisco Chronicle)

“On this day in 1956 John Osborne’s first play, Look Back in Anger, opened at London’s Royal Court Theatre. The press release for the play called the twenty-six-year-old Osborne “an angry young man”; when the play became a hit, the phrase stuck as a label for an under-thirty, post-war generation which felt disillusioned and disenfranchised…” (Today In Literature)

A few pages of newly-discovered notes and comments from the pen of Antoine de Saint-Exupery, give a political peephole into his classic, THE LITTLE PRINCE. (The Washington Post)

Andrew Cuomo, Governor of New York, is penning his memoirs. (The New York Post)

The historu and lure of Vampire literature is examined at (The Chicago Tribune)

The book reviews’ last refuge could be the internet. (The Atlantic)

The LA Times contrasts the literature featured at the Tehran Book Fair, versus what you’ll find for reading material on the streets. (The Los Angeles Times)

And now the libraries start pulling 50 SHADES OF GRAY from the shelves because it’s too erotic erotica. Who didn’t know that was going to happen? (The New York Times)

Salman Rushdie closes the PEN Festival with a lecture on freedom. (The New York Times)

Paul Lee tells us why literature matters. (The Fayetteville Tribune)

“On this day in 1932 William Faulkner reluctantly arrived in Hollywood to begin work as a screenwriter, a labor that would last, on and off, for twenty years. Faulkner was thirty-four years old at the time, and had already published four of his Yoknapatawpha County novels (including The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying)…” (Today In Literature)

With the success of EL James’ 50 SHADES OF GRAY, some speculate that publishers might just start mining fanfiction for lucrative discoveries. (The Guardian)

The International Herald Tribune looks at how literature wilts under the trampling jackboots. (The Express Tribune)

Sadie Jones rates The 7 Best Dinner Parties in Lierature over at (The Huffington Post)

A UK publisher will release a volume of Taliban poetry. (The Denver Post)

Australian Literature enjoys a boom. (WAToday)

The Blogess triumphs! Jenny Lawson gets noticed. (The New York Times)

Adam Mansbach stops cursing when he’s around kids. (The Chicago Tribune)

“On this day in 1862 Henry David Thoreau died at the age of forty-four, from bronchial and respiratory problems. Although the Walden Pond site is regarded as his true monument, he is buried with Emerson, Hawthorne, and the Alcotts on Authors’ Ridge, in Concord’s Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. Thoreau was an integral but prickly member of the Transcendentalist community in Massachusetts…” (Today In Literature)

The Guardian hosts a podcast discussion on whether literary realism can ever live up to reality. (The Guardian)

Emilio Estevez explains how his dad came to help him write his memoir, ALONG THE WAY. (The Huffington Post)

It’s Free Comic Book Day! (The San Fransisco Chronicle)

Neil Gaiman has a chat with (The New York Times)

Google makes a play to have the book scan lawsuit dropped. (GalleyCat)

Gideon Lewis-Kraus’ new book, A SENSE OF DIRECTION, has a backstory. (Slate)

The Hay Festival is, among other things, really good for a laugh. (The Telegraph)

USA Today has a look at the latest crop of books about celebrities. (USA Today)

Frank Pearl, founder of Perseus Books, dies at age 68. RIP (Publishers Weekly)

“On this date in 1927 Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse was published by the Woolfs’ Hogarth Press. Many of the earliest reviews were lukewarm, compared to the modern view that the novel is one of the century’s best…” (Today In Literature)

Buildings from book-inspired design - beautiful. (Flavorwire)

Crime writers and crime fighters join forces: Book ‘Em North Carolina raises $9,000 for literacy efforts in the State. (The Robesonian)

You never know what you might find in an old book. Note signed by Paul Revere found in a rare book at Brown University. (The New York Times)

A discussion of literature’s favorite mother’s is brewing at (BookRiot)

Apparently, today is International Day Against DRM. (DefectiveByDesign)

…and Cory Doctorow will tell you why you should take up its cause. (The Guardian)

Hachette Livre cuts the prices of more ebooks than you can shake a stick at. (The Bookseller)

While DC schools to cut out school librarians. (The Washington Post)

Surprise, surprise. Erstwhile Fox News Mole, Joe Muto, lands a a big book deal with Dutton. (The Hollywood Reporter)

Author, David Bowman, dies at age 54. RIP. (The New York Times)

“On this day in 1948, Norman Mailer’s first novel, The Naked and the Dead was published. A front-page editorial in the London Sunday Times found the language in the novel ‘incredibly foul and beastly’ and lobbied to have the book ‘withdrawn from publication immediately.’ Most reviewers, however, agreed with the New York Times that, despite the swearing and being ‘virtually a Kinsey Report on the sexual behavior of the GI,’ the book ranked among the best war novels…” (Today In Literature)

Jane Rogers takes the Arthur C. Clarke Award for THE TESTAMENT OF JESSIE LAMB. (The Guardian)

A time-lapse money cascade drenches a spoof of a goof: Andrew Shaffer and FIFTY SHAMES OF EARL GREY. (The New York Times)

Debut novelist, Tanya Byrne, talks about the YA boom with (The Telegraph)

A peek at what some famous authors kept on their bookshelves. (Flavorwire)

…and then just some really interesting bookshelves all on their own. (The Huffington Post)

The longlist is up for the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust’s Book Awards. Say that ten times fast. (The Scotsman)

Literary adaptations dominate the nominations for the MTV Movie Awards. (GalleyCat)

The Publishers Association calls for piracy fight to be “ramped up”. (The Bookseller)

With strong digital sales, Simon & Schuster reports a strong start to 2012. (Publishers Weekly)

“On this day in 1810 Lord Byron swam the Hellespont, in emulation of Leander’s legendary swims to visit his beloved Hero. Byron was twenty-two, and ten months into his two-year tour of the Mediterranean. He was not yet famous for his poetry or his profligacy, although he had just finished the first draft of Childe Harold, and had just ended, while in Malta, his first serious affair…” (Today In Literature)

Despite an A-list cast bringing their A-game performances, Jonathan Franzen’s THE CORRECTIONS is just too tricky in the details for HBO to pull off. (Deadline.com)

China tries ad-placement on book covers. (People’s Daily Online)

Barnes & Noble selects some Summer reads from new writers. (Barnes & Noble)

On Twitter, Publishers Marketplace editor Sarah Weinman linked to an older, but interesting piece on book reviewing ethics. (Media Matters)

Target stores to stop selling Kindles. (gigaom)

Generational favorite and lightning rod, Judy Blume, has coffee and a chat with (Barista Kids)

James Hall says he’s cracked the code of writing a bestseller. Buy his book and make him right, I suppose. (Salon)

Peter Osnos tries to make definitive sense of this jumbled ebook lawsuit over at (The Atlantic)

Author, Ernest Callenbach, dies at age 83. RIP. (The San Fransisco Chronicle)

“On this day in 1594, Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew was entered in the Stationers’ Register by printer Peter Short. The Stationers Company was the official organization of printers and publishers, given a monopoly in 1557 to practice ‘the art or mystery of printing.’…” (Today In Literature)