Up on Sunday: Laila Lalami on NPR, talking about what she’s reading (new Junot Diaz, count me jealous).
There’s an odd cultural disconnect in having Nick Hornby talk to David Simon about The Wire: Bubbles has a “shopping trolley”, which sounds far more commodious than what it is on our side of the pond, a shopping cart. (Hornby has begun blogging, BTW). Anyhow, Simon begins:
I was always told to write for the average reader in my newspaper life. The average reader, as they meant it, was some suburban white subscriber with two-point-whatever kids and three-point-whatever cars and a dog and a cat and lawn furniture. He knows nothing and he needs everything explained to him right away, so that exposition becomes this incredible, story-killing burden. Fuck him. Fuck him to hell.
Oh yes, time to get the Believer. And HBO for Season Five.
3 out of 4 Americans read books each year — how many of them are average, I’m not sure — and Kassia has my favorite thoughts on the State of Reading Today Sky Is Falling Crisis.
Maybe the remaining bookreaders got stuck in Buenos Aries, shopping at the most beautiful bookstore ever.
Who’s got the punk? Neal Pollack v. Johnny Rotten.
Or Bob Dylan v. Allen Ginsberg (as portrayed by Cate Blanchett and David Cross).
Advice for new MFAs: it’s MFA Week at Hot Metal Bridge.
It’s OK, Callie, I love your rainbow bookshelves, although I think for ease of use you might want to return to alpha order.
More Sundayness: Ed Champion reviews Death of a Murderer by Rupert Thompson for the LA Times.
In LA, tonight: Vermin on the Mount, the reading series with the mostest — Ron Currie Jr., Michael FitzGerald, and Katherine Taylor.
Wee robot Keepon dances with Spoon. (via)
Jessica and Megan, booksellers who blog, got some love this week.
Finally, big thanks to Gwenda and Christopher (nomination in short fiction here), for their fabulous hostingness in Lexington, Kentucky, featuring dogs, a many-thumbed cat and a delicious BBQ.
