Amanda Knox: On second thought, let's not go to Italy

Who else just got more interested in Amanda Knox's forthcoming memoir WAITING TO BE HEARD with this week's news that she will be re-tried for murder in Italy? The Hollywood Reporter has an interview with Bob Barnett, who represented Knox in negotiating her memoir deal (and also represents Sarah Palin, yeesh). Naturally, he promises a bunch of bombshells in the as yet embargoed memoir.

The American media has framed this case as every study-abroad student's worst nightmare (quite effectively for me). If you are similarly obsessed, I recommend Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi's true-crime book THE MONSTER OF FLORENCE, about an unsolved string of murders in Tuscany. Spezi was a local journalist covering the case, and at one point prosecutor Giuliano Mignini actually arrested and attempted to try him on suspicion of being an accomplice to the murders. Mignini is also the prosecutor in the Amanda Knox case and is believed to be the one who introduced the idea that Knox and her Italian boyfriend (Raffaele Sollecito) killed British student Meredith Kercher for failing to participate in some kind of orgy-themed ritual. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Knox's home paper, has more on THE MONSTER OF FLORENCE and the Knox case.

Reading on the Road: For this relief, much thanks

This is my third weekend of travel in November and my fourth out of the last five. It's been a busy few weeks over at HQ -- I wonder if my roommates remember who I am? (Kidding! I'm the one who got them hooked on homemade espresso! It's a gift that keeps on giving.) I'm packing a stack of paperbacks that have been sitting around including THE RISK POOL, THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS and THE MONSTER OF FLORENCE.

Would you characterize your holiday family breaks (that's for all of you who may not celebrate American Thanksgiving) as high-downtime or low-downtime? I guess "it depends on the holiday" would be the prevailing answer, in any case, but Thanksgiving in my family has been fairly high-downtime in recent years. I feel I have to establish this before you paint this picture in your mind of me hiding in a corner while the rest of my family carves the bird in order to read more. (But at age 6, sure!) The downtime is not only how we roll, it's how the 3 members of my family who are in education (2 in college, 1 teaching) get caught up so they, too, can actually enjoy some of their time off. And if I end up spending my entire vacation laughing at cheesy holiday displays and talking my sister out of dragging me to see "Happy Feet 2"? There's always the flight time.

Reading on the Road: RIP Midwest Airlines Edition

The airline I used to fly on 80 percent of my trips home was purchased and is being slowly unbranded, replaced by... this.

• Tom Perrotta, THE LEFTOVERS (review)
• Amor Towles, RULES OF CIVILITY
• Douglas Preston, THE MONSTER OF FLORENCE

I hope someone told that wolf the birchbark doesn't hide anything.