An “Illegal Library”

A newly released Roald Dahl collection, The Missing Golden Ticket and Other Splendiferous Secrets, includes a secret ending to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and excerpts from the author’s hilariously bad report cards. Wrote one teacher about Dahl in 1931: “A persistent muddler. Vocabulary negligible, sentences malconstructed. He reminds me of a camel.” (via Galley Cat)

“Doctors in England will soon be prescribing books as well as pills to patients suffering from anxiety and depression,” writes Harvey Morris. Hopefully none of these bummers make the cut.

“You could call Zero K a grand summation of DeLillo’s career themes and prose stylings. You could also call it recycling.” Tony Tulathimutte reviews Don DeLillo’s “techno-prophetic novel,” Zero K. To revisit DeLillo’s prior work, check out David Rice’s review of The Angel Esmeralda.

More lists of the top books of 2009 are coming out. Now up: Amazon’s favorites. Tops on their list is Colum McCann’s Let the Great World Spin, recently named a National Book Award finalist.

Ninth Letter recently launched “Only Silence Will Never Betray You,” a mini-anthology of contemporary Bulgarian writers. Editor-at-Large Philip Graham introduces the five writers: Ivayla Alexandrova, Bistra Andreeva, Nikolai Grozni, Georgi Gospodinov, and Marin Bodakov. From our archives: our 2013 interview with Grozni.