Chores

While you were watching the Super Bowl you missed a chance to win A.M. Homes doing your laundry or Joshua Ferris baking a pie at a fundraiser for Charles Bock and family. I feel like this could be a real (non?)profit center for New York-area authors. While it has been decided that cake is better than pie, a lot of people like pie.

My picks for the Boston Book Festival

Boston is a city I love and Saturday's book fest kicks ass -- I'm sorry to miss it. (Maybe next year?) If you're in the neighborhood, here's what I would definitely not miss:

• "First Time's A Charm," 10AM -- Justin Cronin (THE PASSAGE), Joshua Ferris and Jennifer Haigh (THE CONDITION) on life after winning a major award. Hubris city?
• "Pop Culture," 12PM -- Embarrassingly general title, but the prospect of David Rakoff and getting to hear Chip Kidd speak again is a major draw.
• "From Page to Screen," 1:30PM -- Dennis Lehane, A.M. Homes and Tom Perrotta on their movie adaptations (if you will... their filmbooks). Perrotta and Lehane have worked on the screenplays of some of their projects, but if I remember correctly Homes wasn't involved at all with hers, though she wrote for "The L Word" for two seasons. (Kind of shocked that trivium stuck to me, but anyway.) Hoping Perrotta drops hints about his next book (2007's THE ABSTINENCE TEACHER was a little disappointing).
• "Home & Away," 3PM -- Bill Bryson and some other dude. I mean, does it matter?

Here's the full list in case you don't trust my judgment (but I urge you do).

Filmbook-to-Be: We bought the popcorn and then we sat down in our seats.

We were excited to see an adaptation of Joshua Ferris' THEN WE CAME TO THE END is in the works, more so when we found out indie director Lynn Shelton was driving. We thought Shelton's last film "Humpday" was hilarious and just a little moving, though we have to practically dare people to see it once they catch wind of the title and subject matter. Trust us, you can handle it.

Shelton also directed last night's episode of "Mad Men," which we would comment on if we weren't planning to watch it tonight instead.

Recommending THEN WE CAME TO THE END to coworkers: A do or a don't?

That was after the Internet called his house 20 times and hung up

Joshua Ferris (whose second novel THE UNNAMED came out last week) recently recommended some "on the road" books in a piece on Goodreads. But it's not clear why they decided to name the article in question "'In Bed' With Joshua Ferris."

Discussing Ferris' first novel THEN WE CAME TO THE END with The AV Club this week won't secure you a place in his affections, but we may have some elbow room in ours. The live chat is Thursday at 3:30 CST/4:30 EST.

Ferris is also on book tour right now, including stops in Philly, Chicago, Denver and Los Angeles; check his website for details.

FTC cover-assery: I got a free copy of THE UNNAMED.

Join an online book club this year!

The A.V. Club's Wrapped Up In Books kicks the year off with Joshua Ferris' THEN WE CAME TO THE END, a book I'm looking forward to re-reading. Discussion starts January 25. The next two books are Patrick O'Brian's MASTER AND COMMANDER and Stephen Dobyns' THE WRESTLER'S CRUEL STUDY.

The organization FKA Infinite Summer pledged to spend a few months on the long road of Roberto Bolaño's 2666, although no official schedule has been posted yet. (ETA: The blog BolañoBolaño.com has forged ahead with a schedule, planning to start Jan. 25.) Hopefully after reading it I will be able to answer why it's called 2666, as I was unable to when I unwrapped it Christmas morning. ("Uh... maybe part of it is in the future? Or it's a statistic? Why don't you go play with Penguin Race?")

Common Sense Dancing's new pick is Mark Helprin's WINTER'S TALE, starting Feb. 1. I'm not that familiar with Helprin -- failed to get through the first hundred pages of FREDDY AND FREDERICKA -- but this one comes well recommended and is set in New York City.