The OJ Simpson book If I Did It has been cancelled by the Fox Corporation. Murdoch said: ‘I and senior management agree with the American public that this was an ill-considered project. We are sorry for any pain this has caused the families of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson.’ Most booksellers were sold this title blindly, meaning that we were not told the author or title at the time we had to buy it. I guarantee my store will never buy another book where we’re not sure of this information. I hope that Harper Collins and Judith Regan learn something from this.

I’m off to Atlanta tomorrow afternoon for the rest of the week. I’m still not sure what I’m bringing with me to read. Butterfly Stories by William Vollman? Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe? Caesar by Adrian Goldsworthy? The choices are endless. I’m not bringing the Pynchon because it’s just too damn heavy and I can’t imagine a worse place to read it. One needs total concentration with this book, which I cannot get while traveling in the air. Any suggestions for some good plane reading? In the meanwhile, here’s some links to keep you busy, if only for a short while:

• They’re making a movie of Patrick Suskind’s Perfume and a young perfumer has also created, wait for it, perfume to go with the movies release. It actually sounds pretty cool. I’d love to smell it.
• Apparently Scholastic bookfairs are too commercial for some schools. We didn’t have bookfairs all that often when I was growing up. Then again, I lived in Alabama, so…I do agree with those who object to the product placement in the books. Sure Dora the Explorer and SpongeBob are great, but shouldn’t they be a gateway to reading other things, not just more of the same?
• Did you read Rachel Donadio’s piece on literary disputes in last week’s NYTBR? I thought it was pretty lame. Others agree. The essay seemed both arbitrary in examples and boring.

• Richard Powers The Echo Maker (Yay!)
• Timothy Egan The Worst Hard Time
• Nathaniel Mackey Splay Anthem
• M.T. Anderson The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume One

• Lucky Sarah got to interview NBA finalist Richard Powers. The award will be announced tonight around 10 o’clock.
• Reviews of Thomas Pynchon’s mammoth Against the Day are beginning to trickle in at the Complete Review, Scott Mclemee’s Inside Higher Ed column, Time, and the Boston Phoenix.
• The latest scandal on litblogs: free books. Some say that a disclaimer should be made for reviews of books which were sent free from a publisher. Others claim conspiracy. For the record, almost all of the books I review her I didn’t buy or check out of the library. As a buyer at a bookstore, I get anywhere from 25 to 50 books a week sent to my office. But I only read and review what I want. Let the opinions fly.

We’re giving away 3 copies of the Read This! pick Firmin over at the LBC. All you have to do is leave a comment telling everyone what book you would mostly like eat as a rat like Firmin and why.

As you can see from the column to the left, I’m reading the new Thomas Pynchon Against the Day. I’ll be taking part in a roundtable with my fellow Chums of Chance. I can’t remember where I found this article on Gravity’s Rainbow from the New York Times Book Review in 1973. If I didn’t know better, I might think it was from the New York Review of Books due to the level of writing. It’s too bad we don’t get these kind of reviews anymore in today’s NYTBR.

• Head over to the LBC this week, where we’re discussing the latest Read This! pick Firmin by Sam Savage. I really enjoyed this book and am excited to hear from Sam Save himself on Wednesday.
• Here’s a blog devoted to bookplates. There’s a treasure trove of stuff here to look at.
• An American won France’s top literary award, the Goncourt Prize. Jonathan Littell won for his 900 page novel written in French from the perspective of a Nazi officer.
• Is this really it for Alice Munro? Her latest collection The View from Castle Rock goes on sale tomorrow.
• Did anyone else read this Deborah Solomon interview with James Ellroy? He sounds….interesting (I’m trying to be nice here—he comes across as kind of an ass in the interview).

Sorry for the silence. This is a busy time at work—we’re preparing for the Holidays here, coming up with our list of what we call The Holiday Hundred. It’s usually a mix of new and older books from the year that we think are some of the best. Of course, people will quibble with the list—there were many great books that didn’t make it.

One book that made it and I’m am nerdily excited about is Robert Fagle’s new translation of the Aeneid. I’ve only had a chance to read the intro by Bernard Knox and a few pages of the first book. There’s an interesting article in the NYT about Fagles’s efforts.

• Alex Beam writes in today’s Globe about the new Sony Reader, a portable electronic “book”. So far the reviews have been mixed. Somehow I don’t think the old fashioned book is in any danger of extinction. Too many people love holding a real book in their hands, turning each page, savoring the smell and look.
• Robert Birnbaum spoke with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie while she was in the Boston area. I even got a glimpse of Mr. Birnbaum and Rosie as they turned the corner in their cool convertible the day she was in town presumably on the way to the interview.
• Mr. Champion’s review of the new Stephen King appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer yesterday. So far the reviews have been mixed.

This week we’re discussing Sidney Thompson’s Sideshow over at the Co-op. We’re going over almost every story and expect to see the author appear as well as some podcasts.