The Winter Read This! has been announced over at the LBC. The discussion begins on all three books next week I believe. Go look at the winner and read the essay. It’s definitely one of the best books we’ve chosen and one of the best books I read last year (it was in fact the last book I read in 2006).

I hate being sick. I felt so much better on Wednesday and then yesterday, I had to go home sick again. I’m feeling better today luckily, but I don’t have much for you, dear readers.

• Robert Birnbaum has posted several of his most recent interviews. Here he talks with Heidi Julavits about her new novel The Uses of Enchantment. He conducted an email interview with Daniel Mendelsohn, author of the wonderful Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million for Mendelsohn’s new website Jewcy.
• Five Chapters has a story by Anthony Swofford, whose Jarhead: A Marine’s Chronicles of the Gulf War and Other Battles vividly portrayed life in the army and his struggle during the war with the nature of killing.
• Anne Roiphe tries to balance the yearnings of her older and younger selves in her essay Balancing Act.
• On Nextbook, David Rakoff, of Don’t Get Too Comfortable, watches 28 Woody Allen movies in 21 days and posts about it.

I returned to my office, not having been here since Wednesday afternoon, to find my desk laden with packages. It’s the beginning of a new buying season, so I’m getting lots of new galleys and books each day. Here’s a glimpse of what I got and plan on reading:

• Roma by Steven Saylor—This is an epic novel of Rome, not another book in his historical mystery series.
• Deep Economy by Bill McKibben—A book on economy and how we value the things we purchase.
• The Savage Detectives by Robert Bolano—New Directions and FSG are making sure that the works of this Chilean writer are kept in print. This is his first novel about two detectives tracking down a poet.
• Medicus by Ruth Downie—Another historical novel set in Roman Britain.
• Fieldwork by Mischa Berlinski— A first novel from a former journalist in Thailand about a suicide, anthropology, demon possession and the taboo. Exciting!
• Taj Mahal by Diana and Michael Preston—A book that examines the building of the great wonder and also the history of the Moghul Empire itself.
• The Nature of Monsters by Clare Clark—I never read her first book The Great Stink, but heard good things about it. This one is set in the early Eighteenth Century, we follow a pregnant apothecary’s maid as she investigates her masters odd experiments.
• Aya by Marguerite Abouet & Clement Oubrerie—Another Drawn & Quarterly book—I love all of their books. This one is centers on several overlapping love stories in the Ivory Coast.
• Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations by Georgina Howell—Bell turned her back on the Victorian society and made her own rules. This bio promises an “impeccably researched” and “richly compelling portrait” of this interesting woman.
• The Darker Nations by Vijay Prashad—An alternative history of the cold war from the perspective of the Third World.
• The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall—Hard to say what this book is about. It’s got some blurbs comparing it to Memento and Murakami. We’ll see.

I can’t wait to see what I get tomorrow!

I’m participating in a roundtable discussion of Pynchon’s new novel Against the Day. The first post is up both at Ed’s and at MetaxuCafe. Carolyn asks what it would be like it Pynchon took his novel to an MFA workshop. Seeing as the book is 1120 pages, it might take us a while to discuss the whole thing.

Now that we’re 3 days into 2007, it’s time to take a look at what books are being published this year. Max at the Millions has a comprehensive list of upcoming books (plus a lovely redesign). Scott at Conversational Reading has another list and the New York Daily News has a more commercial list, thought they include some good stuff too.

Myself? I’m looking forward to the new Rupert Thomson novel I mentioned before. Ryszard Kapuscinski has a new book called Travels with Herodotus, about his first forays beyond Poland. Apparently he carries around a volume of Herodotus on all of his travels—this makes me love him. There’s also William Vollmann’s new book of non-fiction Poor People and the new Haruki Murakami coming this summer. I also want to get back to some non-fiction that I didn’t get to read last year, as well as a lot of older books, including more Pynchon, Delilo and Achebe. What are you looking forward to reading most?

• Boldtype #39 available for the new year.
• Two new Bat Segundo interviews. He badgered spoke with Simon Winchester and Claire Messud.
• Five Chapters has a new story available, “The Ultimate Jackpot” by Brian DeVido, author of the novel Every Time I Talk to Liston.
• Competition is killing the independent bookstore according to this article by the AP. Wait, what? Seriously? Sorry, it’s just that no matter how many articles come out saying what we already know—the chains and online sales are killing independents—nothing changes. People still come into our stores to browse and then go by their books on Amazon. And yes, it’s making me a little bitter.

If you haven’t heard, John Edwards has announced that he’s going to run for president. I met Mr. Edwards when he did a signing for his book Home: The Blueprints of Our Lives back in late November. Guess which picture the New York Times decided to use in an article about his strategy? Those would be my boobs next to John Edwards head.

The Phoenix has top 10 lists of non-fiction and fiction.
The Village Voice meanwhile has a longer list of both fiction and non-fiction, all alphabetically listed to show that no book is valued above another, well except these which are better than all the rest.

Last week I spent much of my time on the sales floor, helping customers find books and keeping the floor well stocked. This week I’m busy getting the store ready for the new year. A new season of books is ready to flood the store starting in January and we usually spend this week getting rid of the any lingering hardcovers and other excess. It’s busy in a different way. I’ve also got to clean out the office a bit to get prepared for the sales reps who’ll be coming to sell Summer 2007 titles to me. Lots to do here.

I did finish reading Christine Falls by Benjamin Black aka Jon Banville last night. I found the book easy to read and enjoyable—not always words one associates with Jon Banville. This is Banville’s version of a literary mystery and it’s quite good. I’m hoping to hear something on this book soon from the one I consider the Banville expert, TEV.