“As a boy”

In Open Letters, Sam Sacks writes “Quietude is godliness in Lark & Termite” and traces Faulkner’s influence on the new book.n+1 on the 10th anniversary of Britney Spears’ “Baby One More Time”: “After her came the deluge: the end of the record industry as we know it, yes, but also the end of America as it used to conceive of itself.”Soft Skull’s Richard Nash on how to publish in a recession at Conversational Reading.William Safire on “the deluge of books occasioned by the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth.” Millions reader Scott says, “I wish the Book Review would do a LOT more of this kind of stuff.”The Internet is amazing I: J! Archive, “The fan-created archive of Jeopardy! games and players – 160,032 clues and counting!”The Internet is amazing II: The NY Times has a crossword puzzle blog.Maud Newton in Granta: “Exactly how long the prostitute, unbeknownst to my father, stayed at our house and slept in my bed is hard to gauge.””Sometimes, instead of eating alone, I pretend I’m having lunch with American literary legends. Today’s pretend guest was Cormac McCarthy.”Is MacKinlay Kantor’s Andersonville “the best Civil War novel ever?” (via)At Jacket Copy, Carolyn discovers Faulkner and Delillo in the Sports Illustrated archive.Sara Paretsky: “My editor tells me this is the last time the company will let her send me a marked manuscript.”Jenny Davidson on her special pencils.Dan Radosh exposes yet another tired journalistic cliche.The novel of manners, with zombies:: Pride and Prejudice and ZombiesIn praise of the long sentence. (Hear, hear!)