On Wednesday night, Junot Diaz read a brand new short story to a packed house at the Brattle Theater here in Cambridge. You can hear a podcast here. Also, Henry Jenkins, an MIT professor, has posted a geek quiz based on references from The  Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Haven’t had a chance to take the quiz myself (I’m about 2 hours away from vacation) but I bet I’ll score big.

• The Washington Post has a pretty thorough Fall Books Preview.
• What happens when a philanthropist takes on the downtown of Nantucket? The wife of Google CEO has decided to pour money into the decaying downtown. Is this good or bad?
• The shortlist for the John Sargent Sr. First Novel Prize, awarded by the Mercantile Library Center for Fiction, has been announced. It’s a good looking list. The prize will be awarded by last year’s winner Junot Diaz, whom incidentally gave a great reading last night.
• The Quartlerly Conversation has entered its fourth year with its latest issue.
• Two brand new Robert Birnbaum conversations, this time with Robert Stone and with Elizabeth Strout.
• Joshua Henkin, author of Matrimony, is guest blogging over at The Elegant Variation.
• Mr. Bookdwarf’s letter to the editor got published!

I’m about to do some traveling over the next few weeks, so I won’t be posting much. Not that I’ve been posting much of anything anyway. August got away from me somehow. Hopefully a weekend with my sister in San Francisco and a week in the Berkshires will help me relax. Meanwhile, here’s some links to keep you occupied:

• Danish author Peter Fogtdal has a blog called Danish Accent. Go there and also go read his new book The Tsar’s Dwarf, which is fan-freaking-tastic. Not only is the book good, but it’s beautiful as well.
• Quiet earth got a hold of the the script for the screen adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.
  

  To be blunt, the script is a complete stunner. It is a devastating masterwork which, I’m glad to report, has been written with absolute devotion to the original novel. If this is the script that gets filmed, then The Road will not only be the most important post-apocalyptic film ever made but it will profoundly affect the cinema going world.

• Newsweek sent novelist Claire Messud on the road with Barack Obama’s campaign for a week. “First of all, joining up with the Obama campaign was rather like finding an unannounced rave party in the dead of night without a map.”
• Say it ain’t so Oscar!
• Amazon is buying up various parts of the book world. I never used Shelfari anyway as they’re link to Amazon is too prominent for my taste.
• Chad Post at Three Percent has some nice commentary on another silly article on the Huffington Post about the publishing world.

I just read Jennifer Nix’s opinion piece in the Huffington Post on the Chelsea Green/Obama’s Challenge debacle.

“Even more sad? This week, a hefty faction on the left–primarily independent booksellers (following Barnes and Noble’s lead)–is actively boycotting a brave attempt to bring the book-publishing industry into the 21st century, and effectively trying to keep a progressive, pro-Obama (and fact-based) title called Obama’s Challenge out of the marketplace of ideas.”

Not true my friend. Sure some stores might decide not to carry it, but it’s not like we’re getting together to actively decide to boycott the title. Some will carry it and some won’t. Was Margo Baldwin’s desire to get the books out fast smart? Yes. Do we care that Chelsea Green is having Booksure print them? No. For me and others it’s the exclusive deal Amazon gets. Do they think that having the book only available in one place will really drive the sales? Wouldn’t a blanket nation wide roll out of the book make more sense?

“I hate to tell you, indie booksellers, but this isn’t just about business. It’s about activism and defeating the right, and getting our messages and ideas out in the most effective ways possible. It’s about not shooting ourselves in the proverbial foot, again…Boycotting this book is a mistake, and you know it. Instead of looking backward, find ways to advance your own innovative models and POD services with publishers and the public.”

And will they please stop talking down to us like we’re luddite idiots? This means you Jennifer Nix and you Margo Baldwin.

Why don’t we all cheer when a little publisher from Vermont decides to stand up to the right-wing smear tactics against Obama, with a bold and innovative publishing plan?

Perhaps because this “innovative publishing plan” gives the business advantage to a large corporation? Oh wait, Chelsea Green’s motto is “the politics and practice of sustainable living.” Does this new plan fit in with their motto?

And for the record, I do think the book is important. I just wish they had chosen a better way to put this one out. See, no profanity.

• Bookninja pointed out this great article on the success of Sam Savage’s novel Firmin in Europe. “In a quite unsuspected outbreak of literary cultdom, Firmin, the first novel by a retiring 67-year-old from South Carolina about the adventures of an erratic, paper-gobbling, self-pitying rodent, has spent the summer knocking Ken Follett and Stephen King from bestseller spots in Spain and Italy.” Back in the day, Firmin was an LBC pick (I say this to point out how great our taste was).
• I love this Observer story on Sarah McNally and her fabulous NYC independent McNally Robinson, now renamed McNally Jackson. “Ms. McNally’s distaste for Barnes & Noble is aesthetic, in other words, not political: What bothers her is the artlessness with which they go about sellling books, not the mere fact of their corporate status.”
• Speaking of Barnes & Noble, have you heard about the Chelsea Green brouhaha? They’re publishing a book by Robert Cuttner called Obama’s Challenge: America’s Economic Crisis and the Power of a Transformative Presidency. Chelsea Green, traditionally a lefty, pro-local, pro-sustainable living publisher, has partnered with Amazon who will be using their Booksurge print on demand arm to publish the book quickly. The kicker is that Amazon has exclusive selling rights for two weeks. Oh, and they’re passing out coupons at the Democratic convention in Denver that will give people a 25% discount in addition to the discount Amazon is already giving. Barnes & Noble is outraged. They’ve canceled their 10,000 copy preorder. Other independent bookstores are pissed too. It’s odd to be on the side of Barnes & Noble, but Amazon has become the bully in the school yard. Read president Margo Baldwin’s open letter to the bookselling community. I don’t buy it.

Who know that August would be so busy? It’s supposed to be my light month work wise, but I’m finding my days busier than ever. This is my time to get projects done between buying seasons. I have scheduled a vacation for early September. I’m heading to Great Barrington! I’m very excited about this. I can’t wait to visit all the bookstores out there.

On another note, I finished Come on Shore and We Will Kill You and Eat You All by Christina Thompson last week. It’s hard to categorize this book. Perhaps it doesn’t even need it except I had to figure out what was the best section for it in my store. Thompson has written a fantastic memoir/history/travel/sociology book. While studying literature in Australia, she traveled to New Zealand on break. There she met and fell in love with a Maori man. This is not the whole story. As they move about the world, Thompson writes about the cultural differences between the Europeans and the native peoples of New Zealand. Fascinating stuff.

Now I’m about two thirds of the way through Paul Theroux’s latest Ghost Train to the Eastern Star in which he revisits his 1970s trip through Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, India, China, Japan, and Siberia. I love Theroux’s writing. He travels in a way that makes me jealous of all his experiences on the road. He’s in Vietnam right now in the book. He’s gotten there mostly by train with the occasional boat trip and short flight. Theroux has such a fine eye and he’s not afraid to analyze as well, looking beneath the surface for explanations. I can’t wait to get back to it.

Movie stills have been released from The Road, directed by John Hillcoat and starring Viggo Mortenson:

I’ll be back posting next week.

Boldtype # 58 looks at mysteries.

To encourage and cultivate young reviewers and critics under the age of thirty, the Virginia Quarterly Review is holding a “Young Reviewers Contest” in September of this year.

The prize for the winning entry is $1,000, publication in VQR’s Winter 2009 issue, and a publishing contract for three additional reviews worth up to $3,000. Finalists (up to five) will receive a complimentary one-year student or associate membership in the National Book Critics Circle (http://www.bookcritics.org/), a one-year subscription to VQR, and may also be offered paid publication in VQR (in print or online).

Initial screening of entries will be by the staff of VQR. The final judges will be:
• Rebecca Skloot, assistant professor in the creative writing MFA program at the University of Memphis and a member of the National Book Critics Circle’s board of directors;
• Oscar Villalon, book editor of the San Francisco Chronicle and a member of the National Book Critics Circle’s board of directors; and
• Ted Genoways, editor of VQR.

General Guidelines:
• Entrants must be under the age of thirty as of the closing date of the contest, September 30, 2008.
• Entries (one per person) should be at least 2,000 and no more than 3,500 words and should be an in-depth review of a book of fiction, poetry, or nonfiction published in the US after January 1, 2008.
• There is no entry fee for the contest.
• Entries will be accepted online at http://www.vqronline.org/young-reviewers-contest/

• Chad Post interviews with independent bookseller legend Karl Pohrt, who owns Shaman Drum Bookshop in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I’m mentioned!
• My friend Mike also runs a cool website called The Meeting House. Recently he interviewed Salvatore Scibona, whose debut novel The End I had the pleasure of reading a few months back.
• Submit a question to Haruki Murakami, whose memoir What I Talk About When I Talk About Running comes out tomorrow.