Maud Newton

My Paradise Lost Twitter project, unlike the Twain (Letters from the Earth), is kinda underwhelming. But a reading marathon sounds fun.

Shadow Country, by Peter Matthiessen, has won the National Book Award for fiction. (Others will object, but I’m a big fan.)

Richmond & Boston join Philly & Baltimore in the City of Poe championships. How long before da Bronx steps into the ring?

“It’s not enough to knock over a few of our buildings and blow stuff up? Now [al-Zawahri’s gotta] get all personal on my president-elect?”

Metacognition in the rat: Apparently human beings are not, after all, the only creatures who think about thinking.

Nabokov’s final literary striptease: In a BBC interview, the author’s son is suddenly certain Nabokov wanted The Original of Laura preserved.

A few weeks ago, I arrived, breathless, to meet Terry for a quick brunch at Rice before a (disappointing) matinee performance of The Black Watch.
For once I wasn’t winded due to lateness. I’d just...

A federal judge has granted preliminary approval to the Google copyright settlement. Publishers would receive $125 million.

Courtesy of About Last Night, eavesdrop on recent conversations with Tom Stoppard (and Derek Walcott).

Loud Solitude reports that a James Lasdun story collection is forthcoming in August 2009. (Via.)