• This week on www.fivechapters.com, they’re serializing Elizabeth Crane’s “What Happens When the Mipods Leave Their Milleu,” the story of an award-winning graphic novelist who stumbles into a visiting professorship, only to be accused of practicing irony.
• Bat Segundo has three new installments available. He spoke about snarkiness with Heidi Julavits, editor of The Believer, about fatherhood with Neal Pollack, and about writing in Kukuyu with both Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Carolyn of Pinky’s.
• Void Magazine is holding the Worst Ever Love Poem contest.
• Many good literary journals have new issues out including n + 1, A Public Space, and The Virginia Quarterly Review.
• I’ve only just dipped my toe into Aline Kominsky Crumb’s new graphic memoir and it’s intense. Titling her book Need More Love, she promises that it’s packed with sordid details from her life.
• I want to congratulate Dan Wickett adn Steve Gillis at Dzanc Books for their recent acquisition of Yannick Murphy’s second short story collection In a Bear’s Eye, due for publication in February 2008. I loved Murphy’s novel Here They Come and I’m quite eager to read this collection. Has anyone read her first story collection and have an opinion?

The Strip is a piece of property just off the campus of the University of Alabama that contains a lot of small businesses. The University has begun buying up the property in an effort to “diversify” and now they want to raze the building housing the Alabama Book Store, a 42-year-old family business with a staff of 32, to put up a parking lot. Some claim it’s to effort to remove competition for the University’s campus store The Supply Store. Owner David Jones Jr. (who runs the store with his father David Jones Senior) has put together a website SavetheStrip.com to open keep the public abreast of the situation.

I learned today that local independent bookstore Pandemonium Books & Games, who specialize in Science Fiction & Fantasy, are having a lot of financial trouble. They used to be located in The Garage (sort of a small mall) here in Harvard Square but relocated to a larger space in Central square last year. I had hoped this would mean they would thrive. They’re a great store with wonderful booksellers. Owner Tyler Stewart was visited by the tax man and has launched a plea to help keep the store open. They planning on producing a new t-shirt each month. If 1000 people pre-order their new shirts, Pandemonium can pay their back taxes. I hope they make it, I really do.

• Robert Birnbaum’s discussion with Richard Ford is now available. How Ford’s piercing eyes didn’t scar him, I don’t know.
• More Bat Segundo interviews, this time with Christopher Moore, Nick Mamatas, and Stephen Graham Jones.
• This week we’re discussing Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s The Wizard of the Crow over at the LBC.
• Five Chapters is serializing “Land Between Two Brush Shaped Hills” by Rachel Sherman,” a story of junior high friendships, hippie parents, a small town frozen in time by a historic village, and one night where the intricate pre-teen dynamic dramatically changes.”
• Tim Huggins has sold his store Newtonville Books to former employee Mary Cotton. I’m glad it’s being sold rather than closing. I hope this doesn’t mean Tim is leaving the Boston area.

I got back from Portland very late on Saturday. Note: Avoid taking American Airlines to Portland as they fly you through Dallas, TX no matter that you are coming from Boston. The trip was great. I met a lot of nice people, saw some old friends including the Written Nerd (I missed out on meeting Bookseller Chick though dammit). I spent a lot of time at various Powells stores. The famous Dave Weich of Powells.com even gave me a tour of their immense warehouse.

A highlight of the trip has to be the late night visit to Voodoo Doughnuts. Touristy? Yes. Delicious? Yes. Maple flavored doughnut with bacon on top. Doughnuts covered in Captain Crunch or Fruit Loops. Sounds evil, but they are delectable, especially after a night of whiskey.

And yes, I read a lot on the 9 hours I spent just on the planes each way there and back, but that’s for another post.

I thought I would at least recap some of the books I’ve read so far this year. I’ve managed to finish 8 books so far in 2007. Here’s the list:

• Mergers and Acquisitions by Dana Vachon—I hate to say it, but this book seemed like a Bret Easton Ellis knock-off.
• Third Girl From the Left by Martha Southgate—I really liked this book. It’s told in three parts, each from a different characters perspectives. Good writing and good story.
• Bento Box in the Heartland by Linda Furiya—Memoir of growing up the only Asian people in the 60s in Indiana. Not bad, a little bland.
• Free Food for Millionaires by Min Jin Lee—Great debut novel told from the perspective of first generation immigrants from Korea. The main character graduates from Princeton, but has trouble finding a “real” job that pleases her parents.
• Mistress of the Art of Death by Arianna Franklin—I liked this historical mystery set in Medieval Cambridge. It was a fun read.
• A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah—This one was not so fun, more in the heartbreaking category. You might have read the excerpt in the NYT Magazine a few weeks ago. It’s also the next Starbuck’s pick or something.
• Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux—It took me a while to finish this book, not because I didn’t like it, but because I kept getting interrupted. It’s Paul Theroux at his crankiest. I like the guy, at least he knows he’s a crank, right?
• Twins by Marcy Dermansky—Man, this book is crazy. I loved it. Each chapter alternates between the twins’ perspectives. One appears good and one appears bad, but that’s all surface. It’s a fucked up story and I finished it in a day.

Bat Segundo has some new interviews available. The first is with Richard Ford. The second is with LBC nominee Valerie Trueblood.

Speaking of the LBC, this week we’re discussing Demon Theory by Stephen Graham Jones. This was an interesting book. I doubt I would have read it if it were not an LBC pick, but I am glad I finished it.

Valerie Trueblood, author of Seven Loves has kindly agreed to write on the LBC blog today.

Nonfiction

• Patrick Cockburn, The Occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq (Verso)
• Anne Fessler, The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe V. Wade (Penguin Press)
• Michael Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (Penguin Press)
• Simon Schama, Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution (Ecco)
• Sandy Tolan, The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew and the Heart of the Middle East (Bloomsbury)

Fiction

• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Half of a Yellow Sun (Knopf)
• Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss (Grove/Atlantic)
• Dave Eggers, What is the What (McSweeney’s)
• Richard Ford, The Lay of the Land (Knopf)
• Cormac McCarthy, The Road (Knopf)

Memoir/Autobiography

• Donald Antrim, The Afterlife (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
• Alison Bechdel, Fun Home (Houghton Mifflin)
• Alexander Masters, Stuart: A Life Backwards (Delacorte)
• Daniel Mendelsohn, The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million (HarperCollins)
• Teri Jentz, Strange Piece of Paradise (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)