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)

― Madeleine L’Engle

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Andrew Riemer points to “the eloquence and vividness” of Andrew Motion’s writing in Silver: Return to Treasure Island. (Sydney Morning Herald)

John Barrell says Andro Linklater’s evidence is “intriguing” (though “impossible to prove”) in Why Spencer Perceval Had to Die. (The Guardian)

Moira E. McLaughlin declares Laura Vanderkam’s All the Money in the World a “welcome primer in how to find meaning in how you spend your money.” (The Seattle Times)

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)

- Edna Ferber

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Yunte Huang compares Wenguang Huang’s The Little Red Guard to Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying. (Chicago Tribune)

Leyla Sanai discovers “a touching story about love, loyalty and tragedy” in Stephen May’s Life! Death! Prizes! (The Independent)

Dwight Garner calls Buzz Bissinger’s memoir, Father’s Day, “riveting and a bit frightening.” (NYTimes)

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)

-Roger Rosenblatt

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Stephen Lee gives Anouk Markovits’ I Am Forbidden an A-, noting that reading it “richly rewards your efforts and heralds a promising new writer.” (EW.com)

Miriam Di Nunzio joins Gerry Marshall as he “traverses his life’s path — from his upbringing in New York to his college years at Northwestern University (his three children also are grads) to a stint in the Army and to Hollywood, where he experienced the good, the bad and the bankrupt” in his memoir, Happy Days in Hollywood. (Chicago Sun-Times)

Leah Umansky declares Dorothea Tanning’s poetry collection Coming to That “a book full of imagination, creativity and intellect.” (The Rumpus)