Eugene Mirman has an album and a book on the way

By Michael Saba at 2:34 PM on November 11, 2008

Eugene Mirman, poster boy for absurdist comedy, is nothing if not prolific. After working with Stella, 236.com, and Modest Mouse (to name a few,) Messr. Mirman plans to expand his ouevre with a book and follow-up album....  read more

Spiral Stairs, Wrens, many more contribute to Lifted Brow

By Loren Lankford at 10:35 AM on November 10, 2008

Those crazy kids at The Lifted Brow are winding down their buzz-worthy multimedia project. After the announcement of their "Fake Bookshelf" project earlier this year, the Australia-based zine has (finally!) announced pre-orders for the issue, due out Jan. 17....  read more

Dead Celebrity Author of the Month: Roberto Bolaño

By Travis Nichols

 at 3:00 PM on November 4, 2008

Poet and novelist Roberto Bolaño wrote about strangulations, stabbings, rapes, drug deals, pistol-whippings and love gone wrong...  read more

Patton Oswalt lusts for John McCain book, blogs election

By Henry Freedland at 12:31 PM on November 4, 2008

Patton Oswalt is known for his comedy, not his politics. But on his website last week, the Comedians of Comedy founder noticed, perhaps presciently (and with a surprisingly small amount of tongue in his cheek), the subject of America's next great political novel: John McCain. ...  read more

Sam Mendes is a Preacher man

By Sean Gandert at 11:26 AM on November 4, 2008

As close as a Preacher film has been to getting made, it's always seemed like a prayer that would never be answered.  It's not that the cross-country, nihilistic, confrontational comic book couldn't be filmed, but more that given its content, a studio would have to be pretty insane to throw up the kind of money it would take to do it right. But then, the same thing was said about Watchmen, a similarly dense and literate comic, so who's to say what gets greenlighted these days. ...  read more

Graeme Thomson

By Reid Davis at 10:00 AM on November 3, 2008

It's evident from I Shot A Man in Reno that author Graeme Thomson...  read more

National Novel Writing Month commences tomorrow

By Mary Kate Varnau at 2:18 PM on October 31, 2008

This November marks the 10th annual National Novel Writing Month—which kind of sounds like an academic exercise celebrating ivory-tower types, right?  ...  read more

Peter Straub (Editor)

By William Gay at 3:00 PM on October 29, 2008

It’s human nature to love a mystery...  read more

National Book Awards finalists announced

By Mary Kate Varnau at 11:31 AM on October 24, 2008

The National Book Awards nominees are out, and this year's fiction section spans every level of experience. Marilynne Robinson is nominated for Home, a sequel to her 2005 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Gilead. The other veteran of the group is 81-year-old Peter Matthiessen, who received the NBA in 1979 for nonfiction. Aleksandar Hemon is the mid-career writer of the bunch, and the two first-novel authors are Rachel Kushner and Salvatore Scibona. ...  read more

Paul G. Maziar & Maust

By Charles McNair at 3:00 PM on October 23, 2008

In this experimental collaboration between writer Maziar and designer (and Cold War Kids bassist) Maust...  read more

Aravind Adiga's White Tiger wins Booker Prize

By Mary Kate Varnau at 4:55 PM on October 22, 2008

Aravind Adiga won the Man Booker Prize for fiction last week with his novel, The White Tiger. At 34, Adiga was the youngest of the Booker's six shortlisted finalists. The White Tiger, his first book, chronicles the journey of a young Indian entrepreneur bent on escaping impoverished rural life. ...  read more

Charles Barasch

By Allen Shelton at 12:00 PM on October 22, 2008

Barasch has made a frame for the November-election...  read more

Eminem releases new book, announces Relapse

By Loren Lankford at 11:42 AM on October 21, 2008

It's really happening. The much-hyped new album from Eminem, lost from the music industry for four years, has a title. And it's not Empack or King Mathers. ...  read more

Matt Bondurant

By Brad Watson at 12:00 PM on October 17, 2008

After 9/11, sages in the publishing world predicted a further decline in novel...  read more

Mike Sager

By Charles McNair at 4:30 PM on October 16, 2008

Mike Sager, writer-at-large for Esquire, and formerly a...  read more

Alex Ross brings the paperback Noise

By Mary Kate Varnau at 4:45 PM on October 15, 2008

Alex Ross, music critic for The New Yorker, recently became a 2008 MacArthur "Genius" fellow. The fellowship came about a year after The Rest is Noise, his 20th-century study of music history, won the 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award, and took finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Picador has just released The Rest is Noise in paperback, and to mark the occasion, Ross added a number of complementary, interactive features to his website....  read more

Roy Blount Jr.

By Jack Pendarvis at 12:57 PM on October 15, 2008

Roy Blount Jr.’s Alphabet Juice—a relatively short encyclopedic...  read more

Chris Adrian: Word Doc

By Charles McNair at 10:00 AM on October 15, 2008

Chris Adrian has earned a B.A. in English from the University of Florida. He has an M.D. from Eastern Virginia Medical School. He’s earning a new degree in a pediatric hematology/oncology program in San Francisco. He’s two years from a degree from...  read more

Bram Stoker descendent and historian pen Dracula sequel

By Jeffrey Bloomer at 9:19 AM on October 15, 2008

How many vampires are too many vampires?...  read more

Tom Moon guides readers through 1000 Recordings

By Mary Kate Varnau at 3:48 PM on October 14, 2008

In August, Workman Publishing released 1000 Recordings To Hear Before You Die, a guided tour of the best songs, selected and reviewed by NPR music critic Tom Moon. This collection prides itself on being free of genre prejudice; it's a compilation that seeks to "break down genre bias and broaden listeners' horizons—it makes every listener a seeker, actively pursuing new artists and new sounds, and reconfirming the greatness of the classics." ...  read more