• I am a fan of Anthony Bourdain. I’m still pissed that missed meeting him at BEA three years ago at a dinner thrown by Bloomsbury. Good for him that Ecco, one of my favorite publishers, have picked up his next three books:
  

  The first book, Cooks, is a follow up to Kitchen Confidential, in which Bourdain explores how the industry he loves – and the people in it – have changed (if they’ve changed) since his years in the kitchen, and tracks the bizarre changes in his own life, along with more frank observations on dining, cuisine and the grim/glamorous business of cooking. “More about WHO is cooking in America than WHAT’S cooking,” says Bourdain.

• *Yawn* The NBCC has announced their Spring Good Reads list. The best part of the list is the discussion in the comments about how their list really does echo the mainstream. I’m not trying to bash the NBCC—it’s great that they’re trying something different. It’s just disappointing that 825 people came up with this list. I’m sure there is some sort of mathematical probability thing that explains it all.
• Vote for the best of the Booker, “a one-off celebratory award to mark the 40th anniversary of the Booker Prize”. I voted for JG Farrell’s The Siege of Krishnapur. Truly an awesome book about Anglo-Indian relations in the 19th century.
• David Sedaris’s take on the truth of memoirs brouhaha:
  

  “What’s interesting to me,” he says, “is that we live in a time when our government is telling us some pretty profound lies. And then James Frey writes a book and it turns out some of it’s not true. No one asked for their vote back, but everyone wanted back the money they’d spent on that book. We’re in the shadow of huge lies and getting angry about the small ones.”

  Of course his publisher is smart, putting a disclaimer in his forthcoming book. With Sedaris, I doubt people will care. We sold out of premium tickets in the first hour for his upcoming event at my store on June 6th.

• I didn’t know that the Believer had a book award. It’s a good list, lots of books that I don’t remember seeing anywhere else.
• Now I have to go to a very late meeting.

The  most exciting things always happen when I’m out of town. Watch this video about a grad student who lost his Amazon order to a thief. Harvard Book Store manages to save the day and gain a new loyal customer. I’d embed the video, but my skills don’t go that far. Don’t worry, it’s only a few minutes long and has a happy ending.

I’m in Atlanta visiting my parents with my sister. It’s nice to get away for a long weekend somewhere hot. It was over 80 yesterday! I finished the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson earlier in the week. I’ve been trying to think about what to say about the three books. They’re so complicated, but so good. I’m onto another book by Robinson, The Years of Rice and Salt. I have the feeling that I’m going to have to read all of his books. I read a few things in between which I’ll post about next week, one involving dragons and one involving the Greek gods. Can you guess what they are? See you all next week!

• The LA Times interviews Mark Sarvas.
• Terry Teachout reports that Elaine Dundy, author of The Dud Avocado, has died.
• Guess who won second place in Narrative Magazine’s Love Story contest? One of my all time favorite bloggers.
• My pal Mike interviews Askold Melnyczuk over at the Meeting House.
• The May issue of Boldtype is available. It includes an interview with A.M. Homes.