Leave it to Powells to come up with something so cool:
Ian McEwan will be the subject of the first Out of the Book movie to be made by Powell’s Books, and the director will be Doug Biro, a former RCA Records creative director and director of music videos for Christina Aguilera and Rufus Wainwright, according to today’s New York Times.

The 23-minute video will be unveiled at BEA and shown at screenings June 13-17 through more than 50 bookstores across the country. McEwan’s new novel, On Chesil Beach, will be published on June 5 by Nan A. Talese/Random House. Except for his appearances in the video, McEwan will not tour U.S. bookstores for this title. (from Shelf Awareness)

According to this New York Times article, more than 50 stores will be airing the film—including mine!

It’s been busy here at chez Bookdwarf (you’ve noticed the lack of posts), so I’m just now noticing this dust up between Mark Sarvas and n+1. It’s sort of like watching your parents fight—you love them both and also see the faults in both. I don’t agree with Mark posting the emails, but I also don’t agree with Keith Gessen’s assessment of litblogs.

Honestly, Ed is right in his comment that this seems like a bunch of men sitting around flaunting the size of their penises. I’m tired of people trying to ascertain what “litblogs” are for and what we mean and how much backscratching/backstabbing goes on, etc.  Some blogs offer wonderful, thoughtful critiques of literature, some offer gossip about the book industry, many I don’t read because they don’t interest me. And that’s it. I don’t need to worry about what various publications think of me. I’m tired of people trying to pigeonhole my efforts (or lack of) here. Hence, I don’t care what happens in this squabble. It’s a waste of time.

I’m off to Charlottesville, Virginia tomorrow morning, so you won’t hear anything from me until Tuesday. I’m excited that we’re stopping in D.C. for Friday and Saturday before heading to Mr. Bookdwarf’s hometown. I like D.C.—I was there for BookExpo last May. This time I’ll actually be able to see some of the museums, not like last year where I just went in to use their restroom. Not sure what I’m reading on the plane yet. I might read Bill McKibben’s new book Deep Economy or perhaps The Ocean in the Closet by Yuko Taniguchi, an intriguing looking novel coming from Coffee House Press in May. I’ll leave you with a few quick links:

• Granta has chosen another list of Best Young American Novelists. It’s a nice list, though none of them seem that young (I don’t know everyone’s ages of course).
• I kind of liked this article on Katherine Taylor, whose debut novel Rules For Saying Goodbye I briefly reviewed the other day. I’m with her on the pink thing.
• The Tournament of Books is underway. Half of a Yellow Sun beat out Absurdistan, which I think is awesome. I’m still not clear on how the whole Office Betting Pool thing works, but you can keep track here.
• Tonight the NBCC awards are handed out. Click here for a list of the finalists.

• Over at Bookslut, Colleen Mondor interviews Scarlett Thomas, author of the fabulous The End of Mr. Y
• The annual Tournament of Books begins tomorrow. This year they’ve added a Book Bloggers’ Office Pool.
• Issue 7 of the Quarterly Conversation is up. It includes essays by Dan Green, reviews of William Vollman’s Poor People and Chris Adrian’s The Children’s Hospital among others.
• Dammit, I’m going to have to read Joshua Ferris’s Then We Came to the End after reading this great review. Ferris is still guest blogging over at TEV this week.

• Tyler Stewart, owner of Pandemonium Books in Central Square, has managed to stave off the IRS with his t-shirt sales. According to this article in the Globe, they’re still in debt, but not crippled quite yet. You can visit their Livejournal to keep on top of what they’re doing. I for one plan on popping by and picking up some much needed sci-fi—any recommendations?
• Speaking of social networking, Pocahantas of Jamestown (which I mentioned yesterday as my favorite book read so far this year) has her own MySpace page. Who doesn’t have one? Am I going to have to break down and create one?
• Look who has a review of William Vollman’s latest book Poor People in the LA Times! Also, he’s redesigned his site—very spiffy! (I believe Mr. Bookdwarf took the photo now is brandished on the blog.)
• Five Chapters is serializing a new piece of fiction from Danielle Trussoni, whose Falling Through the Earth was one of the New York Times’ top 10 books of last year.

The new Boldtype is up: #41, Rebels. It includes a really nice review of Wizard of the Crow by fellow blogger Scott.

Mark aka TEV sold his book to Bloomsbury! Congratulations Mark. Bloomsbury is a great publishing house and they’re lucky to have your book.

I’m soliciting opinions here on a newer website called Shelfari. Has anyone used it? They emailed (and many others I assume) about their website ages ago. It’s a social networking/cataloging site where one can go and create a virtual bookshelf. They’re sort of like Library Thing, but seem more about sharing with other people. In theory that’s great. My concern with the site is that when you click on a book that is on someone’s shelf, a little blue flag pops up with selections like opinions, details,etc. At the very bottom, however, is a little green flag that says Buy From Amazon. I’m not going to go on a diatribe here about Amazon, but I’m discouraged by all these sites that heavily promote Amazon as opposed to independents. And today I learned that Amazon has invested $1 million in Shelfari. I’m not trying to knock what all these sites are trying to do, but they’re obviously in it to make money and Amazon is who you try to impress to get some of that money. I suppose what I am trying to say is that although a great idea, I’m not sure I’m comfortable getting involved in a place that’s basically taking away business from my livelihood and I want to know, am I missing anything? Has anyone had a great experience with any of these sites?

• The Winter Issue of StorySouth is available featuring a story by Richard Plant. Their annual Million Writers Award for best online fiction will open for editor and reader nominations on March 15. Check back then for more information.
• This week Five Chapters features Alison McGhee’s story “Lives of the Superhero”.
• It looks like I’ll have to read Joshua Ferris’s debutnovel Then We Came to the End. Both Mark and Maud loved the book. They rarely steer me in the wrong direction (I can credit Maud with getting me to read Rupert Thomson). Ferris will also be guest blogging at TEV next week.
• Philip Roth won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Everyman. If anyone needs that $15,000, it’s Roth. I kid. I love Roth, I swear.
• The Globe’s blog Off the Shelf has an interesting bit on Getting Your Book Reviewed in the Times.
• Jessica discusses the New York Comic Con.
• Do you LOVE fiction? The Mercantile Library and the Center for Fiction are
  conducting interviews with fiction lovers to learn more about services we can
  provide online. Please participate. Send an email to centerforfiction@mercantilelibrary.org with the subject line “online book groups”.

Has it already been almost a week since I posted? How time flies! I’m taking an English class over at the Harvard Extension School called Major British Writers II (I missed part I). We meet each Thursday night for two hours and the syllabus is a little intense. Last week we read selections from William Blake’s Songs of Innocence & Experience and The Marriage of Heaven & Hell. I’ve never read any Blake before and was surprised to learn what a radical he was. This week we’re discussing Pride & Prejudice, which I last read years ago. I reread it over the weekend—it’s still a great book! I’m eager to see how the discussion will go. My memory of the story is mainly from all the movies. I’ve seen them all, even went as far as renting the latest version on Sunday to watch again. The book adds so much nuance that the movie’s can never muster. The extra stuff on the Kiera Knightly version had the actors commenting on the various characters and stories and Blenda Blethyn said that Mrs. Bennet was a hero. That her main concern was getting her five daughters married and that she would walk through fire for them. Reading the book at the same time, I found it hard to agree with her assessment of the character. Perhaps in that movie version, but in the book, Mrs. Bennet seems silly and airheaded. We’ll see what my class has to say.