Tuesday Links: More LBC, Bookride, Vonnegut

“People used to wish that life could be as it is in books—that it could have the beauty, drama, and shapeliness that writers gave it. Today, by contrast, we hope desperately that life is not really like our writers portray it; in other words, we hope that writers are not representative men and women, but unfit beings whose perceptions are filtered through their unhealth. It is necessary to hope this, because if life were as it appears in our literature it would be unlivable.” Adam Kirsch explores the downside of literary nostalgia.

Our friends at The Believer teamed up with Los Angeles radio station KCRW to launch a monthly podcast. Check out the first episode of The Organist to hear from George Saunders, Nick Offerman, Greil Marcus and more.

McPherson & Co. typically does print runs of just 2,000 books. With the tiny press about to put out Jaimy Gordon's National Book Award-nominated Lord of Misrule, Barnes & Noble alone wants 2,000, and the question is how many to print.

Looks like you might want to add Noah Hawley's new suspense novel Before the Fall to your reading list -- this review by the New York Times is effusive in its praise. Check out the other side of what a Times review can do and pair it with this review of Laura Tillman's The Long Shadow of Small Ghosts, which includes such lines as: "Is a book without judgment, a personal view and confidence in its validity still a book?"