Singing Dancing Authors

The Daily Beast: The more I read about Elif Batuman's THE POSSESSED, the more I think this book of essays about Russian literature will be right up my alley. Here she offers a list of "alternative Russian classics."

Financial Times: UVa gave some of its new grad students a Kindle DX at the beginning of the year to see whether it would be feasible to go electronic with virtually all its course material. Not surprisingly, the answer is "maybe."

One Minute Book Reviews: Today book blogger extraordinaire Janice Harayda announces the winner of her Delete Key Award for the worst passage she's read in the past year. And since she reviews a book a day, I'm inclined to trust her! Finalists include a disturbing number of my recent reads, like PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES, IT SUCKED AND THEN I CRIED and THE LOST SYMBOL (personally, the only one of those I wanted to send sailing across the room, but your mileage may vary).

New York Times: An adaptation of John Grisham's book A TIME TO KILL will take the stage in Washington D.C. next year, the first of his books to do so. It gives me scant hope that the company putting it on commissioned Rupert Holmes to write the script, the writer and composer of "Drood" but also "Escape (The Piña Colada Song)."

The Canadian Press: Margaret Atwood recently shot a cameo for a forthcoming Canadian movie called "Score: A Hockey Musical," in which she plays herself. I don't know what's better, that there is going to be a hockey musical (I picture it like the "Single Ladies"-driven episode of "Glee," except on ice) or that Atwood is considered famous enough to play herself in it. Biggest author coup since Salman Rushdie popped up in "Bridget Jones' Diary"?

Graphic for no reason: LOLerature.

It didn't suck but I didn't cry either

I'm pretty sure when I joined the Internet I signed a statement forcing me to comment on books by blogging A-listers. So about Heather Armstrong of Dooce's memoir IT SUCKED AND THEN I CRIED: The blog is better. Can you take the cuffs off now?

IT SUCKED... follows Armstrong's first pregnancy, the birth of her daughter Leta (now 5) and her struggles with post-partum depression. Dooce.com, for the 5 people on the Internet who are not familiar yet, began before Armstrong was a parent or even married, and gained its author notoriety when she was fired for writing about work. But "getting dooced" does not a popular blog make, even though it helped Armstrong gain exposure; instead it took a magic formula of "regular, interesting content" and "online marketing." What I'm saying is, I don't begrudge Armstrong for being able to support her family from Dooce, even if at heart I am a "web-based writer" mindlessly going on the attack.

Non-readers of Dooce will probably enjoy IT SUCKED AND THEN I CRIED more than I did. Even though I wasn't reading it regularly when the events described in the book happened, I was comfortable with the style, and there are some very funny scenes (including one involving Norah Jones and a purloined bottle of wine). But overall, it just didn't either captivate me or make me laugh like her hatemail responses or that time she compared her marriage to "Rob & Big." Normally the danger in a blog-to-book adaptation is that not enough new material is added to the blog, but in Armstrong's case I think she didn't pull enough from the blog that I was able to recognize the narrative I'd read before and get some context on it. Most of it I found forgettable, except the graphic bits about pregnancy which will give me medically-themed nightmares.