AMC’s Mad Men spawns a litter of books portraying the swank and the smug. (USA Today)

Kurt Vonnegut helps you edit. (GalleyCat)

Occupy Wall Street might move back into Zuccotti Park and maybe they’ll bring their books with them. (GalleyCat)

If the government tells you what to read… (The New York Times)

Author, Vince Flynn, looks pretty good for having cancer. (The Chicago Sun-Times)

More on kids and dystopian fiction. (The Minneapolis Star-Tribune)

There were 10 books on Ireland that we missed that we shouldn’t have missed yesterday according to (The Christian Science Monitor)

” On this day in 1932 John Updike was born. In a writing career of almost fifty years and as many books, Updike’s five Rabbit novels (counting the 2000 novella, Rabbit Remembered) stand out as a bell tolling, at decade intervals, for Harry ‘Rabbit’ Angstrom and America…” (Today In Literature)

NPR hosts a poem for St. Patrick’s Day. (NPR)

BookRiot focuses on reading technology. (BookRiot)

Beautifully bound books are a good way to start the weekend. (BookTryst)

This American Life makes a retraction. (GalleyCat)

Amazon makes its first Young Adult deal with debut author, Katie D. Anderson. (Publishers Weekly)

Editor, Robert Silvers, has no plans to leave The New York Review of Books. (The New York Times)

The Guardian celebrates their children’s book site’s anniversary. (The Guardian)

“On this day in 1740, writing as Captain Hercules Vinegar, Henry Fielding summoned poet laureate Colley Cibber (portrait) to court, charged with the murder of the English language. Fielding was not only a satiric playwright and novelist but a lawyer (soon, a Justice of the Peace) and a notorious wag; his joke would have been popular among London’s coffee house wits, most of whom would know of Fielding’s enmity for Cibber, if not share it…” (Today In Literature)

ePotter and eDumbledore will be on a Nook/Kindle/etc. near you — very soon. (paidcontent.org)

Bond goes digital as well. (The Bookseller)

Lloyd Shepard talks with ebook pirates over at (The Guardian)

Here’s what’s hot in graphic novels. (The New York Times)

Truman Capote still fascinates and gets column space after all these years. (Reuters)

And Carl Jung is also still a hot topic. Reacquaint yourself at (The Atlantic)

Author, Nadine Gordimer, sits down for a chat with (The Telegraph)

“On this day in 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter was published. Hawthorne’s claim of having discovered in his Salem Custom-House not only the historical records of adultery but the actual, three and one-quarter inch letter ‘A’ — ‘a certain affair of fine red cloth, much worn and faded’ — was a literary device, but it was not pure fiction…” (Today In Literature)

Not surprisingly, author Barry Eisler defends Amazon against its Federally-minded detractors. (GalleyCat)

… while Slate looks at the Amazon-Department of Justice standoff and shrugs. (Slate)

The Bancroft Prize for History is awarded to three books this year. (The New York Times)

Young people seem to like to read about the end of the world as we know it. (The Telegraph)

While some debate its ethics, E.L. James TWILIGHT-inspired erotic novel, 50 SHADES OF GREY, puts Hollywood in its sights. (The Hollywood Reporter)

Author, Everette Hallford, claims Fox’s new tv show, Touch, is based on his book, VISIONARY. (The Hollywood Reporter)

Childrens’ author and illustrator, David McKee, sits down with (The Guardian)

The importance of editing was the hot topic at the Association of American Publishers conference. (The Bookseller)

And Hollywood producers brandish their lawyers at an English pub themed on J.R.R. Tolkein’s, THE HOBBIT. (The New York Daily News)

“On this day in 1983 Rebecca West died at the age of ninety. Cicily Fairfield took her pseudonym from the passionate, outspoken heroine of Ibsen’s Rosmersholm; from her early days writing about suffragettes to her last days writing about Watergate and Marshall McLuhan — a seventy-year career of novels, essays, journalism, literary criticism, and non-fiction books…” (Today In Literature)

Encyclopedia Britannica has gone to paper press for the last time. (Yahoo! News)

Indiana schools declare ’standardized testing’ a literary genre? (The Huffington Post)

The first film of a Charles Dickens work, a relic 111 years old, is unearthed at the British Film Institute. (The Telegraph)

With its origins in TWILIGHT fanfiction, E.L. James’ seven figure Random House deal for 50 SHADES OF GREY stirs an ethical debate on co-opting a pre-existing fan base. (jamigold.com)

Puzo’s estate wrangles with Paramount Pictures over the continuation of THE GODFATHER franchise. (Reuters)

Pamela Redmond Satran gives literary wannabes 22 reasons why they shouldn’t be writers. (The Daily Beast)

Nabakov’s LOLITA gets 15 new cover interpretations. (Flavorwire)

Jeffrey Archer names his candidates for the 10 best serial novels. (The Guardian)

“On this day in 1939, John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath was published. A series of shorter novels published in the mid-30s — Tortilla Flat, In Dubious Battle, Of Mice and Men, The Red Pony — had brought Steinbeck increasing success and fame, but he longed to do a longer novel reflecting ‘a very grave attempt to do a first-rate piece of work.’…” (Today In Literature)

Howard Frank Mosher’s book tour came at an opportune time, if you look at it the right way, or the way Howard himself does. Radiation treatments be damned. (The Huffington Post)

Cablevision money guy, Michael Huesy, steps up as Barnes & Noble’s CFO. (Bloomberg Business Week)

Booktryst is a pretty nifty site. Today, a book inscription from Churchill to Chamberlain. (Booktryst)

Libraries role in Freedom of Information is another thing we lose if the system fails. (The Northwestern)

Hirsute literary chins: the best beards in the business at (The Telegraph)

Chicken or egg puzzle in gender disparity in the book biz. (The Huffington Post)

How Amazon employees feel working for their Grand Overlord, er, company. (GalleyCat)

Random House becomes the latest publisher to go transparent with its authors’ numbers. (Publishers Weekly)

More on book blurbs from (The New York Times)

RIP Richard Morgan, publisher. He was 74. (Publishers Weekly)

“On this day in 1891, Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts premiered in London, an event so ‘controversial and epoch-making,’ says biographer Michael Meyer, that it is now regarded as ‘one of the most famous of theatrical occasions.’ Theater historians report that the scandal over this single performance elicited over 500 printed articles…” (Today In Literature)

Scientists study Thoreau’s nature journals for clues on climate change. (The Huffington Post)

To give credit where credit is due, Maria Popova launches an internet attribution tool, The Curator’s Code. (The Atlantic)

… and here’s the page for The Curator’s Code app. (curatorscode.org)

VS Naipul acts like a jerk and Diana Athill laughs at him. (The Guardian)

No stories, no publishing industry: at some point, you gotta pay the writer. (futurebook.net)

Martyn Pedler interviews comic book writer, Paul Cornell, over at (Bookslut)

Penguin secures 25 boutiques inside selected Barnes & Noble stores. (The Wall Street Journal)

Roald Dahl is voted teachers’ favorite writer for children. (The Telegraph)

IPG and Amazon get ready to rumble. (The Chicago Tribune)

Hatchette Book Group is named Publishing Innovator of the Year (citibizlist)

Jonathan Franzen reportedly hates Kindles, but he’s not above signing one. (Slate)

“On this day in 1901, Andrew Carnegie offered New York City $5.2 million for the construction of 65 branch libraries. Of the 56.5 million given by Carnegie for over 2500 libraries in a dozen countries, this was his largest single grant, part of a wider attempt to live up to his famous dictum: ‘The man who dies thus rich, dies disgraced…’” (Today In Literature)

Here’s a look at correspondence between Aldous Huxley and George Orwell on who would be more right with their predictions in the brave new world of 1984. (GalleyCat)

Thomas L. Friedman makes the case for “hold the oil, and pass the books” in (The New York Times)

Is there an American literary tradition of celebrating losers? (The New York Review of Books)

Bret Easton Ellis pitches a snit fit in The Paris Review’s 200th edition. (The New York Post)

The U.S. Department of Justice’s crackdown on ebook price-fixing has everyone weighing in on the matter:

- Are the new  low prices Amazon has forced simply Capitalist nature taking its course? (The Atlantic)

- a tug-of-war between two evils? (The Washington Post)

- and lawyer-turned-novelist, Scott Turow, is pretty irate about the whole thing. (GalleyCat)

Jodi Picoult chats with (The Minneapolis Star-Tribune)

“On this day in 1923, James Joyce wrote to his patron, Harriet Weaver, that he had just begun ‘Work in Progress,’ the book which would become Finnegans Wake sixteen years later: ‘Yesterday I wrote two pages — the first I have written since the final “Yes” of Ulysses. Having found a pen, with some difficulty I copied them out in a large handwriting on a double sheet of foolscap so that I could read them. . . .’” (Today In Literature)

Toph Eggers dubs Steve Loran Hollywood’s worst screenwriter in (Salon)

Michael Chabon, Jonathan Franzen, and Jhumpa Lahiri are inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. (The Washington Post)

Paris, by the books. (The Huffington Post)

The art of beautifully bound books isn’t buried. (The Telegraph)

BookRiot features a trio of new book trailers. (BookRiot)

Will bookstores follow the record store model and survive the digital tidal wave? (GalleyCat)

Kiana Davenport got in trouble with her Penguin publisher by moonlighting with Amazon. Now she’s all Amazon, all the time. (The New York Times)

The Guardian offers a look back and ahead at the Edinburgh World Writers Conference. (The Guardian)

E.L. James makes a reported seven-figure deal for her small-press published erotic novel, 50 SHADES OF GREY. (The New York Times)

“On this day in 1948, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s wife, Zelda, and eight other patients were killed in a fire at the Highland Mental Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina. Zelda’s first breakdown in 1930 resulted in a sixteen-month stay in a Swiss clinic, and she spent six and a half of the next eight years in American institutions…” (Today In Literature)

On the occasion of the anniversary Charles Bukowski’s death, here are some details of an auction featuring some rare memorabilia of his life and work. (booktryst.com)

Ooops! Yesterday was National Proofreading Day. Here’s what we missed. (GalleyCat)

Edith Pearlman takes top honors at the National Book Critics Awards. (The Telegraph)

The NYPD raids Greenwich Village’s sidewalk booksellers. (DNAinfo.com)

Amazon has calculated the average book length to be 64, 531 words. (Publishers Weekly)

Audible lands some Hollywood A-listers to do some heavy reading out loud. (The Huffington Post)

The Department of Justice’s smoking ears provokes a spirit of cooperation over ebook pricing amongst publishing’s heavy-hitters. (The New York Times)

… and it may have been just a screw-you to Jeff Bezos anyway. (Cnet)

Sprint, marathon, and cross-country: here are a dozen literary passages on running. (The University of Oklahoma)

Some writers have all the fun: Michael Chabon gets a Pulitzer and still gets to write about monsters. (The Telegraph)

Don’t these guys sign a non-disclosure statement? Ex-U.S. Secret Service agent kvetches about in the Clintons in a new self-published book. (The Daily Mail)

“On this day in 1994 Charles Bukowski died. He published over fifty books of poetry and prose in a career spanning a half-century, becoming the Grand Old Man of the fringe presses. He came by his skid-row, blue-collar themes honestly…” (Today In Literature)

Literary prize season clips along…

The Orange Prize Longlist is revealed. (OrangePrize.co.uk)

DREAM OF DING VILLAGE, by Yan Lianke, was banned in China, but it makes an appearance on the longlist for Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. (booktrade.info)

Authors, Scott O’Connor and Michael Levy, take Barnes & Noble’s Discover Great New Writers Awards. (USA Today)

Lloyd Shepard shares his picks for the ten best “weird histories” with (The Guardian)

The Print/Out exhibit at New York’s Museum of Modern Art is more than worth a look. (The Atlantic)

Salon explores the value of voyeurism into author’s private lives. (Salon)

It seem there’s a new one every day: Judy Blume’s backlist goes digital. (GalleyCat)

The U.S. Justice Department put five of the Big 6 publishers and Apple on notice: we’re going to sue you. (The Wall Street Journal)

Here’s a sneak peek at John Grisham’s next YA outing of THEODORE BOONE: THE ACCUSED. (USA Today)

Julia Keller looks at literary inscriptions in (The Chicago Tribune)

Yesterday, Jonathan Franzen didn’t like Twitter. Today, Twitter fights back. (The Telegraph)

“On this day in 1935 Thomas Wolfe’s Of Time and the River was published. Wolfe would die three-and-a-half years later, at the age of thirty-seven; however incomplete or over-cut Wolfe regarded it, this was the last novel that would be published in his lifetime. The legendary story of how the ‘Leviathan’ manuscript was wrestled into publication shape is funny…” (Today in Literature)

Ruth Franklin explores the possibility that Mary Shelley’s FRANKENSTEIN is metaphorically about childbirth. (The New Republic)

Teju Cole’s, OPEN CITY, wins the PEN/Hemingway Award. (St. Louis Today)

…and the Ezra Jack Keats New Writer and New Illustrator awards go out, as well. (The Sacramento Bee)

The other day, we told you about Byliner. It has a commissioned an original story from Margaret Atwood (among others.) Here’s a delectable sample from I’M STARVED FOR YOU. (Byliner)

Here’s a  call for a new Library at Alexandria to be filled with hardcopy of all these ebooks. (techdirt.com)

Food and very specific dishes figure prominently in THE HUNGER GAMES. Neatly, it’s inspired cooks to collaborate on developing the recipes for these fictional feasts. (fictionalfood.net)

John Updike’s backlist goes digital for his birthday. (The New York Times)

Here a recap of The Association of Writers and Writing Program’s annual conference in Chicago. (The New York daily News)

It’s not that I don’t see his point… Jonathan Franzen hates Twitter. (The Guardian)

“On this day in 1967 Alice B. Toklas died, at the age of eighty-nine. Toklas spent her last twenty-one years without Gertrude Stein, but with the same idiosyncratic devotion to Stein’s genius as she had throughout their thirty-three years together… (Today In Literature)

With the centennial anniversary of the sailing of the Titanic approaching in April, the Library Journal puts the spotlight on fifteen new books on the subject. (Library Journal)

Today is the 20th anniversary of the first English-language newspaper published in Moscow. (The Library of Congress)

150 years ago, historian Franz Xaver locked away a collection of 500 fairytales. Someone just found the key. (The Guardian)

Scholastic launches Storia, an ebook platform for children’s fare. (Publishers Weekly)

CNN chats with Jonathan Safran Foer. (CNN)

The National Association of College Stores locks horns with Amazon and winds up gored, or at least grazed. (Seattle Weekly)

Brenna Clark Gray plots a path for the uninitiated through the catalog of Margaret Atwood works over at (BookRiot)

Did you know there’s a London bookstore that floats along the Thames? There is! (The Telegraph)

The house where Truman Capote wrote BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S sells for a hefty hunk of change. (The New York Daily News)

The LA Times celebrates Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s 84th birthday with, among other things, a transcript of the author’s chat with Japanese film director, Akira Kurosawa. (The Los Angeles Times)

Shorter than a “real” book, longer than an article, here’s the case made for Kindle Singles by (The New York Times)

Two powerhouse Christian publishers, Zondervan and Thomas Nelson, join forces to bolster their market. (M Live)

“On this day in 1928 Gabriel Garcia Marquez was born. Marquez’s Living to Tell the Tale tells his first twenty-seven years in such a detailed, vivid and captivating way - the writer was first a reporter, though in a Caribbean world where ‘reality resembles the wildest imagination’…” (Today In Literature)

Not really what books are for, but look at what this guy can do with an old book and a scalpel. (posterous.com)

Authors, Stephen King and Lauren Grodstein, sit down to entertain and opine as part of Algonquin Books interview series. (patch.com)

The very best fictional bookstores, presented by (Flavorwire)

DIARY OF A WIMPY KID author, Jeff Kinney, gets a stinger from his own son. (The Telegraph)

The Bible’s Book of Revelation gets dissected at (Salon)

Nobel laureate, José Saramago, submitted his novel to a publisher in 1953. Fifty-nine years later, it goes to print. (The Guardian)

The Golden Kite Awards are presented for achievement in books for young people. (GalleyCat)

And Jonathan Franzen accepts the John Gardner Fiction Book Award at Binghampton University. (binghampton.edu)

I do love my ereader, but Julie Bosman and Matt Richtel articulate why I leave the wi-fi turned off. (The New York Times)

…and then there are 10 things that might be a problem with ebooks. (smartmoney.com)

An Australian bookshop opens an ebook section inhouse. (zdnet)

Author, Benedict Freedman, dies at age 92. (The Los Angeles Times)

Chronologist, encyclopedist, and writer, James Trager, dies at age 86. (The New York Times)

“On this day in 1954, Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood was published in England; coming out just four months after his death in New York, it was an immediate best seller. Though conceived a decade earlier, most of this ‘Play for Voices’ was done during Thomas’s last years…” (Today In Literature)

Tonight, ABC premiers a new show, GCB, based on Kim Gatlin’s novel, GOOD CHRISTIAN BITCHES. (Entertainment Weekly)

Dr. Seuss drew nudes? Who knew? Brace yourself. (The Atlantic)

BEAUTIFUL THING author, Sonia Faleiro, talks about her research into in Mumbai’s bar dancers. (The Huffington Post)

Fox News CEO, Roger Ailes, has praise enough for Rachel Maddow’s new book to appear on the jacket in a blurb. (The Huffington Post)

A closer look at the upcoming Poe adventure/mystery, John Cusack’s, THE RAVEN. (The Christian Science Monitor)

Book critic, John Leonard, chronicles his thoughts on reading. (Slate)

Here’s a sneak-peek and a quiz in a ramp up to the Tucson Festival of Books. (Arizona Daily Star)

The Guardian interviews author, Jonathan Lethem. (The Guardian)

Ahoy novelists! Go write a letter. (GalleyCat)

“On this day in 1675 John Bunyan went to prison for the third time, convicted of preaching his Baptist faith without a license. In over 12 years of confinement Bunyan wrote numerous books and pamphlets, including Part I of A Pilgrim’s Progress. It sold 100,000 copies in his lifetime, and is still reported to be the most sold book in the world, next to the Bible…” (Today In Literature)

Poet, Tsering Woeser, under house arrest in China, is prevented from receiving Prince Claus Award. (The Guardian)

Of tearful and fearful goodbyes: biographers board the train and leave their subjects on the platform. (The New York Times)

Fun with book covers! AKA: March Madness isn’t just for basketball. (AbeBooks.com)

Twitter celebrated Dr. Seuss’ birthday. (USA Today)

The American Library Association weighs in on Random House’s ebook price hike. (ALA.org)

The five best love stories according to author, Lisa Appignanesi. (The Telegraph)

The Rolling Stones will commemorate their 50th year with a book! (CBS News)

Author, Kevin MacLeod, sits down with (The Scotsman)

Suzanne Collins sighs with big relief at the tone and achievement of the film adaptation of THE HUNGER GAMES. (GalleyCat)

” On this day in 1982, the experimental French writer Georges Perec died, at the age of forty-five. Like Italo Calvino, Perec belonged to the ‘Ouvroir de Litterature Potentielle’ group, founded in 1960; translated, this would be ‘Workshop of Potential Literature,’ but the group is known internationally as OuLiPo…” (Today In Literature)

Levi Asher of LitKicks, reveals the story (and photos) behind his search for Fitzgerald’s and Gatsby’s, Valley of Ashes. (LitKicks)

As book reviews go, the more, the merrier - Slate to launch monthly book review section. (The New York Times)

Sometimes, if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry. Here are some books that are an object lesson of that truism. (The Guardian)

Mark Zusak’s, THE BOOK THIEF, is headed to the screen, or at least from the screenwriter, Michael Petroni, to Downton Abbey director, Brian Percival. (GalleyCat)

Random House jacks up library ebook prices by sometimes 300%. (The Digital Shift)

Digital self-publishing explodes, but should trade publishers take heed? (The Atlantic)

Prologue Books will electronically revive out-of-print titles for F+W Media. (Publishers Weekly)

Louise Fennel sits down with The Scotsman to talk about her debut novel, DEAD RICH. (The Scotsman)

The Independent Publishers Guild posts the shortlist for their annual awards. (The Bookseller)

Notable Seattle bookseller, David Ishii, dies at age 76. (The Seattle Times)

“On this day in 1930 forty-four-year-old D. H. Lawrence died in Vence, France, of tuberculosis. Lawrence was so scoffing of medical (or any other) science that he refused to name or accept his condition, or to submit to any of the ‘magic mountain’ treatments recommended to him…” (Today In Literature)

Author and political commentator, Andrew Beitbart, dies suddenly at age 43. (CNN)

Nobel Prize-winning poet, Wislawa Szymborska’s, will provides for a new literary prize and foundation in her memory. (The Sacramento Bee)

Jim Fingal and John D’Agata lock ballpoint horns in a philosophical and writerly clash. (The New York Times)

… and a bit more on that. (The New York Times)

Apple blocks Amazon in a publishing news day that’s brought to you by the letter ‘A’. (Digital Trends)

Lorna Bradbury creates a list of the 50 Best Books for Children at (The Telegraph)

A new Nook purchase = two tickets to ‘The Hunger Games’ film. (Yahoo! News)

Book Expo America to live-stream its events. (The BEAN)

Archie comics are in the crosshairs of One Million Moms. (GalleyCat)

Octavia Spenser won an Oscar on Sunday and today is looking for a book deal for her children’s book series today. (E! Online)

Landmark libraries are the rage at Library Journal. (Library Journal)

“On this day in 1862, Emily Dickinson’s poem ‘Safe in their Alabaster Chambers’ was published in the Springfield Daily Republican. This was the second of only a handful of poems published in Dickinson’s lifetime, all of them anonymously and, most think, without her knowledge…” (Today In Literature)

Godrej & Boyce, India’s last typewriter manufacturer, ends production. (BeliefNet)

Comedy Central starts up its own publishing imprint with Running Press. (The Hollywood Reporter)

Stephen King will read the audiobook version of, THE WIND THROUGH THE KEYHOLE. (UPI.com)

Charlotte Brontë (yeah, that Charlotte Brontë) has a new short story out. (The Guardian)

Much twittering and buzzing for Zadie Smith’s cover art for, NW, her new novel. (tmblr)

… and speaking of Zadie Smith cover-art, you can compete to redesign WHITE TEETH (among others) in this contest at (stylist.co.uk)

Literary fathers and their writerly sons are on tap at (The Telegraph)

Here are ten highly-acclaimed novels that disappointed in the final pages. (The Atlantic)

… and eight awful blurbs written by really good writers. (The Huffington Post)

Writing for literary journals seems to be largely a boy’s sport, still. (GalleyCat)

The final volume of THE DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN REGIONAL ENGLISH goes to print. (The New York Times)

“On this day in 1992 Ruth Pitter died. Although Pitter has fallen into the obscurity we might associate with leap year, she was a durable and prize-winning poet in her day — Hawthornden Prize in 1937, Heinemann Award in 1954, Queen’s Gold Medal in 1955, CBE in 1979, eighteen volumes of new and collected verse. The modern neglect may be attributable to her too-wide range, or her unmodern themes…” (Today In Literature)

The Atlantic digs up Raymond Chandler’s opinion of the 1948 Oscars hubbub. (The Atlantic)

Bookstore inside libraries. Now that’s using your noodle. (The Boston Globe)

Microsoft peddles a new ereader Down Under with pre-loaded pirated content. Oh dear. (metafilter)

…but Cnet say the modern publishing industry is built on a platform of piracy. (Cnet)

Author, Donovan Hohn, sits down with (The Telegraph)

Might ebooks be supplanting the mass market paperback? (GalleyCat)

Here’s some coverage of the MangaNEXT convention. (Publishers Weekly)

Jan Berenstain, co-creator of The Berenstain Bears, has died at age 88. (The New York Times)

“On this day in 1749 Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones was announced in London’s “The General Advertiser”:

THE HISTORY OF TOM JONES,
A FOUNDLING.
– Mores hominum multorum vidit –
By HENRY FIELDING, Esq;

It being impossible to get Sets bound fast enough to answer Demand for them, such Gentlemen and Ladies as please, may have them sew’d in Blue Paper and Boards, at the Price of 16s…” (Today In Literature)