I am under the weather this week, damn sinuses, but that did not prevent me from being interviewed for a local news station about this whole James Frey debacle. They contacted my store and as one of the only people who had read the book, they wanted my opinion. So watch WB56 news at 10 tonight, those in the area. I will be the one who looks like she’s stoned (all that sudafed).

UPDATE: I got cut. I suppose I shouldn’t have admitted that I didn’t care for the book in the first place.

They sure do have a cool book club website.

I can rarely pass up a challenge. Ed has proposed increasing the 50 Book Challenge to 75 Books. Done and done. I’ve already completed the first book of 2006–David Mitchell’s Black Swan Green and am hoping to have some sort of interesting review up soon. I am already hard at work on P.D. James’ The Lighthouse.

I know, I know. You are sick of me coming in here with all these lame excuses about not posting. Well, here’s one more. I am just bloody tired, that’s all. This holiday season wiped me out. It got to the point where I didn’t want to even read because it meant holding a book. But never fear, I am still reading aplenty and will soon, hopefully, post about some of these books. I am two quarters the way throough the delightfully different David Mitchell. I’ll let you know how it goes. I’ll leave you with some links in the meantime.

• New Boldtype available: The Obsession Issue. Everyone needs a good obsession.
• Robert Birnbaum speaks with George Packer about Iraq and more.
• Richard Nash won the Miriam Bass Award for Creativity in Independent Publishing. Congratulations to him. Soft Skull is a beacon for small, independent publishers.
• The LBC lives. We’ll be announcing the next pick on January 15th. I’ll say that this round offered some of the most exciting nominees. I read some great authors that I was not familiar with before. Stay tuned. There will be podcasts, interviews, balloons. Okay, maybe not balloons.

It’s still crazy here at work. Not much time to post. I am in the middle of The Singapore Grip and loving it. I also read Michelle Tea’s new book Rose of No Man’s Land (due out in February) over the weekend. I hope to give it a longer review at some later date. In one sentence though, I thought this book beautiful and challenging–challenging to stereotypical coming of age books that is. More on that later.

Allen Jones mentions me in his roundup of favorite links. I feel pretty honored. It’s not often people get acknowledged for anything and it feels nice to be with such good company.

I hope to be back to some normal posting next week, but I might chime in over the next few days. So say hello and tell me what you are looking forward to reading over your holiday.

• Here’s a rare, lengthy interview with Philip Roth at the Guardian. “There once was this photographer from New York. ‘Smile,’ she always said. ‘Smile!’ I couldn’t stand her or the whole phenomenon. Why smile into a camera? It makes no human sense. So I got rid of both her and the smile.”
• Robert Birnbaum spoke with Marc Estrin recently. Estrin, author of Insect Dreams is also a puppeteer, interestingly enough.
• I forgot to link to Birnbaum’s talk with Barbara Ehrenreich last week. So here it is.
• Bookdwarf favorite Jeff of Syntax of Things has compiled the Underrated Writers Project, which he put together from other litbloggers’ recommendations.
• Jamy Tomio interviews awesome Kelly Link at the Fantasy Book Spot. (thanks Bookslut)

I mentioned a few weeks ago that the buying office was giving a presentation plus Q&A on December 1st. My store has posted my suggestions, which are culled from my reading list this past year. This is not my ‘Top Books of 2005’ list, which I am still compiling. But check here to see what I spoke about that evening.

• The Year End issue of Boldtype is available.
• Gilbert Sorrentino won the 2005 Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award. Also, as part of their Reading & Conversations Series, Edwidge Danticat will speak with Junot Diaz on November 30th. The talk will be available on their audio archives the following week.
• Bud Parr of Chekhov’s Mistress has brought us Metaxucafe, a sort of litblog filter or one-stop shopping site if you will. It looks very cool.
• The NYT has announced its Top 10 Best Books of 2005. They are:
  • Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
  • On Beauty by Zadie Smith
  • Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld
  • Saturday by Ian McEwan
  • Veronica by Mary Gaitskill
  • The Assassin’s Gate: America in Iraq by George Packer
  • De Kooning: An American Master by Mark Stevens
  • Lost Painting: The Search for a Carvaggio Masterpiece by Jonathan Harr
  • Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 by Tony Judt
  • The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

I make no secret of the fact that I work for an independent bookstore, so I won’t go on another diatribe about how everyone should support their local stores again. But here are 2 articles about local store owners who also have persuasive arguments. The first is an interview with Tom Holbrook, owner of RiverRun Bookstore in downtown Portsmouth. He’s independent and proud of it. Plus it’s cool that he keeps a dictionary in his car in case of emergencies. The second article is about the founding of the San Francisco Locally Owned Merchants Alliance. When stores work together, great things can happen. Neal Sofman of A Clean Well-Lighted Place read a report that said local stores recirculate more of their sales dollars within the local economy than chain stores. So he showed this study to other mechants and the Alliance was born.

Thanks to the Literary Saloon for pointing out this lovely True Short Story by Ali Smith in the new Prospect. I recently finished The Accidental and have been having a hard time writing about this book. But I’ll come up with something.