Posting will be sporadic this week due to the madness that is the holiday shopping season. I’m leaving you with some links that I would like to read myself, if I didn’t have too much to do.

• As you’ve no doubt heard, Judith Regan has been fired from HarperCollins. The New York Times says that Rupert Murdoch personally ordered this to be done after he heard reports of allegedly anti-Semitic comments made by her. The LA Times reports that she wasn’t let go because of the OJ Simpson imbroglio nor the forthcoming book that reimagines Mickey Mantle’s life that includes some steamy segments. Some say it’s Ron Hogan’s fault. Judith Regan has hired litigator Bert Fields to fight back. What happens to her imprint? Editorial Director Cal Morgan will take the helm for now.
• Max over at The Millions has been running a great Year in Reading series for the past week.
• Dan Wickett posts about the books he’s most looking forward to reading in 2007. It’s quite a list. I’ll add that I’m looking forward to reading Clare Tomalin’s biography of Thomas Hardy, due sometime next month. Plus a million other books.
• Lizzie Skurnick, aka The Old Hag, writes about Mommy Lit, the natural offshoot of Chick Lit, in the New York Times. Some object to the term and others embrace books that write about their experiences. I’m not going to fight about this one. I’ve said what I have to say about chick lit for now.
• Book World lists the 12 books she wishes she had put down in 2006.
• The LA Times reports the opening of a new independent bookstore called Metropolis in downtown LA. It’s the first non-specialty, non-chain store to open since the Fowler Brothers closed in 1994.
• Scott at Conversational Reading lists his favorite books of the year.
• Venerable interviewer Robert Birnbaum speaks with Donald Hall.
• Check out this brand new literary magazine Ward 6 Review.
• Finn Harvor, a writer in South Korea, has put together Conversations in the Book Trade, a series of interviews with folks involved with publishing. The most current interview is with Richard Nash of Soft Skull (one of my favorites).
• This week on Five Chapters, we follow “one story of complicated and intersecting relationships with another, Panio Gianopoulos’ biting and brutally honest “Luxury.”