Andrew Anthony profiles James Ellroy through the prism of his lastest, Blood’s a Rover. (The Observer)

Richard Lea reports on the longlist for the 2010 Guardian first book award. (The Guardian)

Blogcritics’ Scott Butki chats it up with novelist Laura Lippman. (seattlepi.com)

Kelly Zhou rounds up a week of festivities in honor of Ray Bradbury’s 90th. (Daily Bruin)

Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Weiner talk to Jason Pinter about the whole “Franzen feud”… (Huffington Post) …more here and here.

And here: Lincoln Michel asks if the Times really does favor white male authors. (Faster Times)

Bloomsbury to relaunch the entire Harry Potter series to coincide with the upcoming film and then, presumably, roll around naked in piles of money. (The Independent)

Jacket Copy looks at some “non-book literary oddities” on eBay. (LATimes)

Author Amanda Craig says the UK government should ban poor people from  having more than two children. (Telegraph)

“On this day in 430, Saint Augustine died at the age of seventy-five. He was Bishop of Hippo (now Annaba, Algeria) for thirty-four years, during which time he became the patriarch of Christian Africa and one of the most influential leaders of the Latin Church; from a literary viewpoint, his Confessions is seen as one of the first major contributions to the genre of self-disclosure.” (Today in Literature)

…as recited by a 3 year-old:

Bo Emerson profiles Mississippi poet Natasha Tretheway, whose new book tackles the lingering effects of Katrina. (accessAtlanta)

Greg Gerke chats it up with short story author Lydia Davis. (The Rumpus)

Michael Korda explains why he writes. (Publishers Weekly)

In celebration of Tanith Lee. (Guardian Books Blog)

Robert Richardson discusses why William James continues to matter. (The Daily Beast)

Michael Pollak traces Mark Twain’s New York footsteps. (NYTimes)

A rather hefty profile of David Mitchell. (The Independent)

6 year-old lands a 23 book deal? (Mirror)

UK authors join forces in protesting cuts to Public Lending Right, which pays authors each time one of their books is borrowed. (The Guardian)

“On this day in 1841, James Fenimore Cooper’s The Deerslayer was published. This covers the earliest phase of the Leatherstocking saga, wherein the twenty-three-year-old Natty Bumppo must pass his first tests in the wilderness, rise above the worst of paleface and redskin ethics, avoid being burned at the stake, return Chingachgook’s beloved Wah-ta!-Wah to him, and tell Judith that his heart belongs to the forest.” (Today in Literature)

From the torforge YouTube description:

When New York City jewelry designer Garet James stumbles into a strange antiques shop in her neighborhood, her life is about to be turned upside down. John Dee, the enigmatic shopkeeper, commissions her to open a vintage silver box for a generous sum of money. Oddly, the symbol of a swan on the box exactly matches the ring given to her by her deceased mother. Garet can’t believe her luck and this eerie coincidence until she opens the box and otherworldly things start happening. . . .

That evening, the precious silver box is stolen. When Garet begins to investigate, she learns that she has been pulled into a prophecy that is hundreds of years old, and opening the box has unleashed an evil force onto the streets of Manhattan and the world at large. Gradually, Garet pieces together her true identity—one that her deceased mother desperately tried to protect her from. Generations of women in Garet’s family, including her beloved mother, suffered and died at the hands of this prevailing evil. Does Garet possess the power to reclaim the box and defeat this devastating force?

On her journey, she will meet the fey folk who walk unnoticed among humans and a sexy vampire who also happens to be a hedge fund manager that she can’t stop thinking about. But the fairies reveal a desire to overpower mere humans and the seductive vampire has the power to steal the life from her body. Whom can Garet trust to guide her? Using her newfound powers and sharp wit, Garet will muster everything she’s got to shut down the evil taking over her friends, family, New York City, and the world.

Seth Godin expands on his reasons for bypassing traditional publishing. (mediabistro.com)

Ramy Habeeb chats it up with “digital innovator” Peter Collingridge of Enhanced Editions, who produces enhanced eBooks in the UK. (Publishing Perspectives)

Rachel Deahl has some new details on the Andrew Wylie / Random House truce. (Publishers Weekly)

Charlotte Higgins talks to AS Byatt about her new novel, in addition to “religion, reality, her hatred of diaries and why she is eager for someone to write a novel about the discourse of Facebook and Twitter”. (The Guardian)

Free eBooks for college students… get em while they’re hot. (GalleyCat)

Rick Gekoski muses on what it means to be good literary loser. (Guardian Books Blog)

David Pogue takes the new Kindle for a test drive. (NYTimes)

MI5 thought James Bond screenwriter Cyril Wolf Mankowitz was a spy. (Herald Scotland)

In other “weird spy” news, the author who claimed he was a CIA assassin killed himself on accident… (AP)

“On this day in 1875, the lawyer-politician-writer John Buchan was born, in Perth, Scotland. Buchan wrote prolifically and in almost all genres, but he is best known for his spy-adventure novels, particularly the first “Richard Hannay” book, The Thirty-Nine Steps. Most give Buchan credit for the kind of espionage thriller — he called them “shockers” — that would eventually arrive at James Bond.” (Today in Literature)

From the YouTube description:

Young adult author Larry Mike Garmon interviewed for KWTV-4’s “Is This a Great State or What?” segment at Altus High School, Altus, OK:

Random House / Andrew Wylie Saga Resolved

Random House Strikes Truce with Wylie Agency (GalleyCat)
Wylie and Random House make e-peace (The Literary Saloon)
Amazon Loses E-Book Deal (Wall Street Journal)

In other news:

Chris Power continues his “brief survey of the short story” with a look at the work of Vladimir Nabokov. (Guardian Books Blog)

Why aren’t Britons visiting libraries anymore? (Telegraph)

Poet Liz Lochhead will read at the funeral of Edwin Morgan tomorrow. (Herald Scotland)

Will Gompertz comments (briefly) on the “Franzen media roadshow”. (BBC)

Sean Di Lizio chronicles his experiences in attempting a novel in three days. (The Millions)

Joseph Berger details the woes of New York City’s sole Yiddish bookstore. (NYTimes)

Sabina Dana Plasse explores what makes US Poet Laureate WS Merwin tick. (Idaho Mountain Express)

Kayla Webley looks at what the prisoners at Guantánamo Bay are reading. (TIME)

R.I.P. Edward Kean, TV writer. (NYTimes)

R.I.P. Gerald Rosen, novelist and professor. (San Francisco Chronicle)

R.I.P. George David Weiss, songwriter. (NYTimes)

R.I.P. Satoshi Kon, anime writer and director. (Collider)

“On this day in 1949, Martin Amis was born. In any history of the last half-century of English Literature, a chapter will have to be given to the Amis family’s seventy-five books — and still counting, in Martin’s case. Two chapters might be better: one of father Kingsley’s many “failures of tolerance,” to use Martin’s phrase, was his contempt for his son’s postmodern novels, or the few he’d tried reading.” (Today in Literature)

From the YouTube description:

“Age of the Dragons” is an adaptation of Herman Melville’s classic novel Moby Dick. Set in a medieval realm where Captain Ahab and crew hunt dragons for the vitriol that powers their world, Ishmael, a charismatic harpooner joins their quest. Ahab’s adopted daughter Rachel, beautiful and tough, runs the hunting vessel. Ahab’s obsession is to seek revenge on a great “White Dragon” that slaughtered his family when he was young and left his body scarred and mauled, drives the crew deeper into the heart of darkness. In the White Dragon’s lair Ahab’s secrets are revealed and Rachel must choose between following him on his dark quest or escaping to a new life with Ishmael.

Alec Michod chats it up with “brainy British novelist” David Mitchell. (The Rumpus)

The launch of Suzanne Collins’s Mockingjay creates high hopes among booksellers. (NYTimes)

The September 2010 issue of World Literature Online is now, well, online. (WLT)

Charlotte Higgins examines the ethics of the memoir. (The Guardian)

Jeff Rivera talks to bestselling author Phillipa Gregory (audio). (GalleyCat)

Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg muses on the effect of Seth Godin walking away from traditional publishing. (Wall Street Journal)

Daniel B. Roberts profiles the “next big thing in urban hipster lit”, Tao Lin. (Salon)

John Le Carré calls James Bond a “neo-fascist” gangster. (Telegraph)

Google shifts its stance on net neutrality. What does that mean for the book settlement? (Publishers Weekly)

“On this day in 1847 Charlotte Bronte sent her manuscript of Jane Eyre to her eventual publisher, under her pseudonym of Currer Bell. Many first reviewers thought the book outrageous; one speculated that Currer Bell was an “unsexed” woman who dared “to trample upon customs established by our forefathers, and long destined to shed glory upon our domestic circles.” (Today in Literature)

From the YouTube description:

In 1905, Jack London, American adventurer and author of “The Call of the Wild,” “The Sea Wolf,” “White Fang,” and more than two dozen other books, purchased over 100 acres of land outside the town of Glen Ellen, in Sonoma County, California. He called the area “the Valley of the Moon.” The ranch he built is now a California State Park and National Historic Landmark. The grounds include the ranch house, farm buildings, the House of Happy Walls, the ruins of the ill-fated Wolf House, and the graves of Jack and Charmian London.

Günter Grass talks writing, politics and the Brothers Grimm in a wide-ranging interview. (Spiegel)

Prepare to laugh. (Better Book Titles)

Peruse the most anticipated fiction and non-fiction of this fall. (New York Magazine)

Jonathan Jones declares Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom “the novel of the year, and the century”. (Guardian Books Blog)

Johann Hari reminds us that Jack London was far more than a children’s adventure writer. (The Independent)

German best seller list invaded by women writing in English. (Publishers Weekly)

Kelly Zhou joins the chorus of 90th birthday wishes for Ray Bradbury. (The Daily Bruin)

Carol Rumens celebrates the life of Edwin Morgan in this week’s “poem of the week”. (Guardian Books Blog)

Peter Applebome looks back at the quirky poetry, and even quirkier behavior, of Alfred Starr Hamilton. (NYTimes)

“On this day in 1305 Scotland’s William Wallace was executed — to be accurate: hanged, disemboweled, beheaded and quartered. The William Wallace legend and the popularity of the Braveheart movie owe much to a 15th century epic poem by Blind Harry the Minstrel. Robert Burns added to Wallace literature too, though his “Scots Wha Hae” went forth behind cover.” (Today in Literature)

From the Waterstone’s YouTube description:

DBC Pierre’s third novel completes a loose trilogy of fictions, each of which stands alone as a joyful expression of the human spirit. Gabriel Brockwell, aesthete, poet, philosopher, disaffected twenty-something decadent, is thinking terminal. His philosophical enquiries, the abstractions he indulges, and how these relate to a life lived, all point in the same direction. His destination is Wonderland. The nature and style of the journey is all that’s to be decided. Taking in London, Tokyo, Berlin and the Galapagos Islands, “Lights Out In Wonderland” documents Gabriel Brockwell’s remarkable global odyssey. Committed to the pursuit of pleasure and in search of the Bacchanal to obliterate all previous parties, Gabriel’s adventure takes in a spell in rehab, a near-death experience with fugu ovaries, a sexual encounter with an octopus, and finally an orgiastic feast in the bowels of Berlin’s majestic Tempelhof Airport.

Sean O’Hagan spends an Irish evening with DBC Pierre. (The Observer)

Christopher Lehmann-Haupt remembers Frank Kermode as a “critic who write with style”. (NYTimes)

Craig Fehrmen looks back at the history of writers on TIME’s cover and what it says about Jonathan Franzen. (The Millions)

Amanda Katz profiles law professor Martha Minow and gets her views on how literature might be a key to resolving societal conflicts. (Boston Globe)

Territorial pissings: bookstores fight a war of attrition in Westhampton Beach. (NYTimes)

Brian Brady looks to “a radical future for book publishing”. (The Independent)

Benjamin Pimental says that next year’s first Filipino American International Book Festival is long overdue. (Inquirer.net)

Royal British Legion put in ‘no-win’ situation by Tony Blairs book donation. (Telegraph)

R.I.P. Bernard Knox, scholar of classical literature. (The Washington Post)

R.I.P. Nancy Freedman, novelist and feminist. (KansasCity.com)

“On this day in 1893 Dorothy Parker was born in Long Branch, New Jersey, to Henry and Eliza Rothschild (”My God, no, dear! We’d never even heard of those Rothschilds”). Her birth was two months premature, allowing her to say that it was the last time she was early for anything; her early writing was a “following in the exquisite footsteps of Edna St. Vincent Millay, unhappily in my own horrible sneakers.”" (Today in Literature)

From the ShelfLifeTV description:

Author Mark B. Pickering discusses his novel, “Story of the Sand” (iUniverse, 2008), which tells the story of an Iraq war veteran who returns home to Georgia after a tour of duty, only to find himself struggling to readjust to the life he once knew. For more info, visit www.storyofthesand.com.

Sarah Crown profiles David Almond. (The Guardian)

AS Byatt (as Dame Antonia Duffy) and John Carey take the 2010 James Tait Black Memorial Prize. (ABC)

Josh Fernandez goes after the myth that poetry is beyond the comprehension of the average reader. (Roseville Press-Tribune)

Piss off a TV writer at your peril. (Wall Street Journal)

Sugar returns with a new installment of her advice column for writers. (The Rumpus)

Simon Heffer defends his obsession with grammar. (Telegraph)

Take a moment and check this out. (E-Books for Troops)

Seth Godin vows to abandon traditional publishing. (GalleyCat)

“On this day in 1920, Christopher Robin Milne was born, an only child to A. A. Milne. Christopher also wrote, his first two books being memoirs of his growing up and out from under the shadow of the fictional Christopher Robin. The writing of the first of these was “like a session on the analyst’s couch,” and reads partly as setting-the-record-straight, partly as settling-the-score.” (Today in Literature)

From the YouTube description:

Swedish crime writers Anders Roslund and Börge Hellström talk about their latest novel, THREE SECONDS, the winner of the Best Swedish Crime Novel of the Year.

Charles McNulty digs into the life of rock-poet Patti Smith. (LATimes)

Ben Myers remembers Edwin Morgan. (Guardian Books Blog)

YA authors close ranks around fellow author disinvited from a Texas book festival. (Publishers Weekly)

Jason Boog rounds up some views on advertising in digital texts. (GalleyCat)

Dirk Smilie takes a look at the 10 highest-paid authors. (Forbes)

Blake Gopnik examines the mental processes, and benefits, of reading challenging literature. (Washington Post)

Something tells me Peter Pan wouldn’t like this. (NY Daily News)

Annie Huang muses on whether eReading is a bona fide revolution or merely a passing fad. (AP)

Ceri Radford defends the imperfect manuscript as a source of wonder and insight. (Telegraph)

Boyd Tonkin recaps the week in books. (The Independent)

“On this day in 1667, John Milton’s Paradise Lost was entered in the Stationers’ Register. The fifty-eight-year-old Milton was totally blind, probably from glaucoma, throughout the decade it took to write “Paradise Lost”; his habit was to compose at night and then present himself to a scribe each morning to be, as he put it, “milked.”" (Today in Literature)

From the YouTube description:

Locals from Glasgow read Scottish poet laureate Edwin Morgan’s poems on BBC’s The Culture Show. Originally broadcast 8th March 2008:

Edwin Morgan
1920-2010

Scottish national poet Edwin Morgan dies (Herald Scotland)

Scotland’s national poet Edwin Morgan dies aged 90 (STV News)

Poetry, criticism, gallery and much more. (Edwin Morgan Official Site)

Edwin Morgan biography and much more. (Contemporary Writers - The British Council)

In other news:

John Waters talks about his recently published memoir, his reading habits and more. (The Paris Review)

Jacob Silverman charts the rediscovery of two “lost masterpieces” by Hans Keilson. (The Daily Beast)

Anne Fortier makes her case for re-imagining Shakespeare’s Juliet. (Wall Street Journal)

Geraldine Brooks wins the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for lifetime achievement. (ABCNews)

David Barnett introduces the Wankh Award for “smuttiest book title”. (Guardian Books Blog)

David Martindale chats it up with Texas novelist Laurie Moore. (Dallas Morning News)

The long list has been announced for the 2010 German Book Prize. (Deutscher Buchpreis)

Jessica Francis Kane presents a thoughtful essay on that special writing space. (The Millions)

Paul Owen reports on the strict requirements for getting a book signed by Tony Blair. (The Guardian)

R.I.P. Frank Kermode, critic and academic. (Washington Post)

“On this day in 1915 Ring Lardner Jr. was born. Though Lardner’s adult fame was earned — screenplay Oscars for Woman of the Year (1942) and M*A*S*H (1970), the novel The Ecstasy of Owen Muir (1954); blacklisting as one of McCarthy’s “Hollywood Ten” — he met the public early, often and hilariously in his father’s daily column, usually as “Bill.”" (Today in Literature)