As I’ve written before, I choose books to read based on how attention-grabbing and/or well-written the first two pages are. I’m not sure if I mentioned this part before, but the book that made me decide that two pages was all I needed was Nelson Algren’s A Walk on the Wild Side. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting when I pulled it off the shelf at a bookstore and skimmed the back cover before opening the book and being instantly amazed …

I’m with Ron Hogan on this one. I find a federal court’s decision to award a film production company a fraud settlement against writer Laura Albert inexplicable and bizarre. So Laura Albert impersonated a man named J. T. Leroy. It was a work of fiction. There is a long, long history of pseudonymous literature. Was nobody on Albert’s defense team aware that some of the greatest novelists of all time were women who impersonated men to increase their …

Complaining can become a habit, but a fresh look at the New York Times Book Review shows that this publication’s editorial choices have significantly improved in 2007. We’ve seen unknown novelists on the front page, paperback originals on the front page, translations on the front page. We’re hearing more first-person voice in certain columns and on the blog. There hasn’t been a Food Issue in over a year. Yes, it’s a fact: the NYTBR is getting better.

Today’s issue features …

1. A Salon article quote by Richard Nash to the effect that independent publishers “got fucked by the Enron of publishing” has been getting a lot of mileage. In fact, this is no mere sound-bite, and the similarities between the AMS disaster and the Enron scandal go more than skin deep. In both cases, high-rolling top-tier business executives made reckless and dishonest decisions that affected the lives of countless trusting investors, partners and customers. The top Enron …

It seems that the thing to do once the weather gets warmer is make lists of must-reads for summer. This is fair enough, though I do have to wonder why I don’t see must-read lists for winter, when the latest blizzard has you housebound, because being stuck indoors for fear of getting hypothermia upon venturing outdoors seems like a great excuse for getting a lot of reading done. But maybe that’s just me. In any case, as I was perusing my RSS …

Like most Americans, I have trouble taking knighthood seriously. But I guess I’m pleased to know that a writer I’ve encountered in real life more times in the last few years than I’ve encountered some members of my own family (mainly because I go to a lot of PEN World Voices events, and occasionally indulge in some Manhattan literary nightlife) is actually a Sir. Then again, Ginger, the Irish setter I had as a kid, was actually a Sir too, according …

The New York Times Book Review just launched an exciting new blog, Paper Cuts, manned by senior editor Dwight Garner. If future weeks are as good as the first week, this site is sure to become a key literary destination. So far we’ve gotten a superb display of vintage book ads (featuring a baby-faced Cormac McCarthy and many other apparitions), notices about Martin Amis and Chinua Achebe, institutional memories of Theodore Dreiser and Eudora Welty. Dwight Garner has even managed to …

I’ve found a new novel to love, a slim volume called On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan.

This is a psychological novel in the classic tradition, like Washington Square by Henry James or The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot. McEwan walks us through the forbidden thoughts, logical formulas and (often) utter delusions that fill the minds of his characters, two forlorn young British virgins named Edward and Florence, as they approach each other in dread and excitement on their wedding night. …

A few months ago, I wrote a post about language, which was inspired by the fact that I was, at the time, applying to a summer language program. I never did any follow up to that post, but yes, I did make it into that program, and so I have been a student of the Arabic language for a week and a half. And what a week and a half it has been. Other than the fact that I’ve been out …

1. Well, my Sopranos predictions didn’t come true, but I wasn’t too far off on most points. I loved the fade-out ending, which is of course the classic The Lady or the Tiger ending as originated by short story writer Frank R. Stockton. The tense final episode also gave us another “Yeets” (Yeats) recitation by the fitful and hilarious young A. J. Soprano, and we were also treated to a few verses of Bob Dylan’s “It’s Alright Ma, I’m …