Dave Rosenthal looks at the Salinger sequel lawsuit and wonders why there aren’t more cases like this in the age of our derivative entertainment culture.

The Sydney Morning Herald looks back at the life and work of Mario Bededetti.

Boston.com goes to BookExpo and sees the future of publishing.

Lady Antonia Fraser to pen memoir of her marriage to Harold Pinter.

A first edition of James Joyce’s Ulysses has sold for £275,000, a record for any 20th-century first edition. The Guardian reports that it, like so many copies of the book, has been unread, “except for the racy bits.”

Readerville shutting its virtual doors after nine years. The L.A. Times says goodbye.

The Telegraph’s Mark Sanderson rounds up the latest happenings in literary life, including shrinking book prizes and growing page counts.

Today in Literature: On this day in 1977, Anais Nin’s Delta of Venus was published posthumously; on the same day three years later, Henry Miller died.

Former pirate hostage Capt. Richard Phillips gets his book deal, but the 500k winning bid was lower than expected, possibly owing to “depressed book sales and hero fatigue.”

Salon’s Ron Rosenbaum wonders just what J.D. Salinger’s been up to all these years and whether his archives need to be saved… from himself.

MercuryNews looks at Charlaine Harris’s bloody success story.

Speaking of vampires, here’s the London Times’ 1897 review of Dracula.

Sure, that new book reads well, but what does it smell like?

The Houston Chronicle profiles Texas poet laureate Paul Ruffin.

Today in Literature: On this day in 1832, British philosopher and refromer Jeremy Bentham died.

BBC News Magazine’s Finlo Rohrer steps away from the Salinger lawsuit to remember just why the author’s classic The Catcher in the Rye still holds so much power more than a half century after its publication.

Salon caught up with several prominent authors last week at BEA to find out their recommended reads for the summer.

On the 111th anniversary of his birth,  Federico García Lorca’s life and work get a nice little writeup at Finding Dulcinea.

Stuart Walton explores the magical feeling of being of being read aloud to.

PEN America offers a link-heavy look at the twentieth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre.

The CrunchPad joins the eReader race.

PCWorld’s Brennon Slattery says that Google’s entry into the eBook business will create a standards (and price) war.

Today in Literature: On this day in 1910, O’ Henry died of alcohol-related ilness at the age of forty-seven.

The Wall Street Journal has an interview with Marc Reiner, a copyright lawyer and partner at Dorsey & Whitney in New York, discussing the finer points of J.D. Salinger’s lawsuit over the unauthorized sequel to The Catcher in the Rye. Here’s a taste:

Hi Marc. Thanks for taking the time. So what are the prevailing issues in the suit?

It looks to me like the plaintiffs will have to prevail on two big issues — the first of which is probably easier to win than the second. The first is whether the character of Holden Caulfield is copyrightable. That issue — whether a fictional character is copyrightable — is a little unsettled. It’s most readily applied to characters that are graphic, like Mickey Mouse, or if the character has been in a series, like Tarzan.

I’d probably lean toward thinking that Holden Caulfield is fleshed out well enough to be copyrightable.

Read the whole interview here.

J.D. Salinger’s 9-page complaint against John David California, WindUpBird Publishing, Nicotext and SCB Distributors has been posted at The Smoking Gun.

A.F. Moritz and C.D. Wright take the top honors at the 2009 Griffin Poetry Prize awards, along with $50,000 each.

American writer Marilynne Robinson is the unanimous choice for the Orange Prize for her novel, Home.

Rob Woodard takes a look at Ray Bradbury’s new short story collection, We’ll Always Have Paris.

“Hell is not a Game”: Christian groups protest Electronic Arts’ new game based on Dante’s Inferno outside the E3 trade show.

Inside Higher Ed presents an essay by Scott McLemee on the struggles of university presses in the midst of the economic downturn and the mad rush to electronic publishing.

Less than a year after Written Nerd book blogger Jessica Stockton Bagnulo won a $15,000 Brooklyn Public Library grant to open a bookstore, she’s signed the lease.

R.I.P. David Eddings

Today in Literature: On this day in 1924, E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India was published.

Today’s “Salinger sequel” roundup: Michelle Richmond looks back at Salinger’s tenacious defense of his properties; Dave Rosenthal asks, “Who owns Holden Caulfield?”; U.S. distributor SCB gets named in the lawsuit; Courthouse News Service breaks down the particulars of the legal action so far.

Up for an ‘Infinite Summer’? Endurance bibliophiles plan to spend the dog days of summer immersed in David Foster Wallace’s masterpiece, Infinite Jest. The Guardian Book Blog has more.

Slam poetry “inventor” Marc Kelly Smith worries that the art form may be “going soft.”

The Observer has a bizarre story about Paul Auster’s Timbuktu and how it became a children’s book without the author knowing and/or remembering that it happened.

Publishers turn to the hard-learned lessons of digital music to find profits and combat piracy.

“Away We Go”, the new film co-written by Dave Eggers and his novelist wife Vendela Vida, is getting a lot of attention in advance of its opening this Friday: Jed P. Cohen focuses on how the project came together; Melissa Silverstein interviews Vida; the Village Voice takes pot shots at Eggers.

Amazon announces that the Kindle DX will begin shipping on June 10th.

Bookseller.com has the full list of prizes given out at this week’s British Book Industry Awards.

Canada’s literary elite gear up for tonight’s Griffin Poetry Prize ceremony.

The Examiner’s Stephanie Giancola chats it up with romance novelist Sara Humphreys.

Today in Literature: On this day in 1964, T.S. Eliot dined with Groucho Marx and his wife, after years of correspondence.

Lawyered up: Salinger sues to block publication of unauthorized Catcher in the Rye sequel (go get em, tiger).

Google to take on Amazon in the e-book market.

BEA coast to coast: The New York Times says BookExpo America jumped on the digital bandwagon. The LA Times says it was the year of the indie publisher. The Dallas Morning News wants to know where the free galleys were.

Canadian novelist Paul Quarrington talks about life after being diagnosed with lung cancer.

Handwritten love letters from Oscar Wilde to Lord Alfred Douglas among the 600,000 pages of manuscripts and documentation now available at British Literary Manuscripts Online c1660-1900.

Guardian Book Blog’s Robert McCrum looks back at literature’s invisible man, George Orwell.

NPR looks back at the pioneering efforts of Elsie Washington, mother of the black romance novel.

Today in Literature: On this day in 1962, Vita Sackville-West—a true original—died.

J.D. Salinger’s agents are conferring with lawyers to put the kibosh on John David California’s unauthorized sequel to The Catcher in the Rye (California’s people would do well to revisit the tenacity with which Salinger went after Ian Hamilton).

It was only a matter of time: the Oxford poetry war is now being waged in verse, with a poem called “Smear” by an unnamed “high profile poet” being circulated by editors of “Oxford Poetry.” Check out the poem here.

Pia Chatterjee shares her tips on getting started on your novel.

Tim Lott questions whether the gravity is gone from British literature.

The Royal Society announces its longlist for The 2009 Royal Society Prize for Science Books.

Czech-born writer Milan Kundera bows out of a conference on his work in his homeland.

Short Story Library has rolled out a new batch of fiction this week, with a micro piece by Daryl Baldwin, Amy Corbin’s new short story “The Connection” and flash fiction by Patricia Hysell entitled “The Gods Discuss.”

R.I.P. Kamala Das

Today in Literature: On this day in 1898, George Bernard Shaw tied the knot with Charlotte Payne-Townsend, beginning a forty-five year (apparently celibate) marriage.

Salinger’s lawyers are on the case regarding John David California’s unauthorized The Catcher in the Rye sequel.

“On-demand” books topped traditional book releases in 2008 for the first time ever. Is it the economy of a sea change in the publishing model?

Bret Easton Ellis moves into the screenwriting business with The Roseblood Movie Co. financing and producing an as-of-yet untitled film directed by Brad Furman.

Hyperion dives into the online publishing world with its “e-imprint” Kernl.

Internet Archive co-founder Brewster Kahle writes in a Washington Post op-ed that the Google Books settlement “provides a new and unsettling form of media consolidation.”

R.I.P. Leonard Shlain

R.I.P. Elsie B. Washington

Today in Literature: On this day in 1937, W.H. Auden’s Spain was published, with proceeds supporting the anti-Franco Medical Aid Committee. Ironically, on the very same day, George Orwell was shot in the throat while fighting for the same cause.

As reported this morning, an obscure Swedish publisher has announced an “unauthorized sequel” to Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. But the whole thing just gets weirder. GalleyCat thinks it’s a hoax:

The literary blogosphere has been buzzing all morning about John David California’s sequel to J.D. Salinger’s famous novel, “The Catcher in the Rye.” While the author’s Guardian interview seemed earnest, GalleyCat thinks the whole thing might be more like “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” and less like “Wide Sargasso Sea.”

January Magazine muses (briefly) on a far more horrifying prospect:

Will this be what finally wrenches notoriously reclusive author J.D. Salinger from the comfy nest he’s been hiding out in for more than 50 years? Or was the book penned by Salinger in a lame disguise? Both are possible. Time will tell.

My take (hope?) is that it’s not Salinger. But I also don’t think it’s a hoax. I’ve seen way too many gimmicks and publicity plays and much too much general prostitution in the publishing industry to be surprised by anything anymore.

Time will tell.

Holden Caulfield is resurrected in a new, unauthorized sequel to The Catcher in the Rye. Stuart Evers says, “No thanks.”

Keats goes to Cannes… sort of.

“Angels and Demons” star Stellan Skarsgard says Dan Brown is a “terribly bad writer.”

Australian writer Christos Tsiolkas takes home the Commonwealth Writers Prize for best book for The Slap.

The Times looks at New Jersey’s connection to Pulitzer-winning poet, W.S. Merwin.

Today in Literature: On this day in 1939, Nathanael West’s The Day of the Locust was published.