Kafka box to be opened to public… and contains NEW STORY!

Canadian Government, such as it is, launches “review” of publishing sector… For the benefit of non-Canucks, “review” is typically Canadian Conservative code for “pre-sector-gutting-spin-brainstorming-exercise”

Sentenced to reading… (Of course, some manifiestations of this punishment will be crueler and more unusual than others…)

I’ve completely missed this bruhaha over at the LRB, like I’ve missed most of the LRB these last few years, unfortunately… apparently they ran an article on the blog that is being decried as racist, and they’re now apologising… a good lesson in internet publishing and instant feedback, I guess

Borders throws caution to the wind and enters online textbook market

Publishers love them some of the Twitter, mm-hm

Heaney makes Forward list, but Walcott doesn’t… I’d have liked to see Paul Durcan here for his magnificent selected Life is a Dream, but alas…

Woody Allen finds new way to be less irrelevant

YA author compares his own work to cocaine… no, really (”I’ve worked really hard to make it absolute cocaine for my son – something he couldn’t put down. He’s been a really useful filter for what I could and couldn’t do to keep his interest”… Note to author: You probably shouldn’t be using drug metaphors in your line of work. In part because you’re talking about 11-year-olds, and in part because you’re wrong. Addiction isn’t interest; it’s what stands in for interest when the will shuts down… Damn, that one’s going in my next book of aphorisms.)

Novelist designs tour to preach to choir… literally