Links & Reviews

- In the Winter 2009/10 print issue of Rain Taxi there's an interview with Paul Collins. He credits authors Edmund Lester Pearson and Van Wyck Brooks with influencing his choice of material, noting that they are "both keenly interested in overlooked and contextual authors," and has many good things to say about McSweeney's and its editor, Dave Eggers. He also provides some interesting background on writing The Book of William (which, if you haven't read it, I still highly recommend), and lets us in on his next project.

- It now appears that Kirkus Reviews may stay afloat; news this week that a buyer may have been found.

- Elizabeth Kostova discussed her new novel The Swan Thieves this week on NPR.

- Book Patrol notes that today's 6.5 CA quake rattled some bookshops, including our friend Scott Brown's Eureka Books (with pics). Thankfully it doesn't look like the damage was too serious.

- Caleb Crain's in the NYT Magazine this weekend with their "On Language" column - it's about the recent Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary.

- Also in the NYTimes, Ben Yagoda writes on authors being contacted about their works.

- The National Lighthouse Heritage Trust (UK) is putting a collection of 200 historic travel books up for auction in Edinburgh. The books could bring in as much as 200,000 GBP. The auction will be on Wednesday at Lyon and Trumbull.

- From BibliOdyssey, "Botanical Beasties." Beautiful!

- The former treasurer of the Erwin Library and Institute in Boonville, NY has pleaded not guilty to charges that he embezzled more than $280,000 from the library.

- There's an extract from Bill Bryson's Seeing Further: The Story of Science & the Royal Society in The Times.

- Campaign for the American Reader asks "What is Jack Lynch reading?"

Reviews:

- The Oxford Companion to the Book, edited by Michael Suarez and HW Woudhuysen: review by Noel Malcolm in The Telegraph.

- The American Civil War by John Keegan: review by Gary Gallagher in the Washington Post.

- A Gambling Man by Jenny Uglow: review by Megan Marshall in the NYTimes.

- The Citizen's Constitution by Seth Lipsky and The Annotated U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence by Jack Rakove: review by Adam Liptak in the NYTimes.

- The Genesis Enigma by Andrew Parker: review by Richard Fortey in the TLS. My favorite review so far this year.