Tuesday New Release Day: Nguyen; McKay; Smith; Kitamura; Manguso; Omotoso; Lee; Darnielle

Greg Mortenson, whose legal and ethical battles we’ve mentioned before, has agreed to repay $1,000,000 of the funds he allegedly embezzled from the Central Asia Institute.

Waterboro Library in Maine has compiled a list of books about “Drowned Towns,” – “Mysteries and other fiction with a featured element of intentional submerging, inundating, and flooding of towns, villages, cities, and other places as a consequence of building dams and reservoirs for water supply, hydroelectric power, irrigation, flood management, and job creation.” Also known as “Reservoir Noir.”Rare art by Calvin & Hobbes creator Bill Watterson (via)AICN Books offers early looks at The Road by Cormac McCarthy and A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon.The Written Nerd looks at the ethics of “street dates,” the “do not sell before this date, or else!” restrictions that come with blockbuster books.The IHT looks at Gunter Grass’ new memoir, roughly translated as Peeling the Onion. Earlier this month Grass told the world that the book would reveal that he had been a member of the Waffen SS during World War II. Word has it, the book is unlikely to appear in the US any time soon.Google now lets you add a Book Search widget to your Web pages. The search engine giant has also announced that it will start making public domain books available in PDF form. Here’s an example.YPTR, in amusing fashion, takes up the question of DFW and whether he will produce a novel again.

The Los Angeles Times loves Emily St. John Mandel’s latest novel The Singer’s Gun.

The British Library has paid £32,000 for poet Wendy Cope‘s email archive.  A far cry from stacks of personal letters, but seemingly the natural progression of things.  According to Cope herself, many of the emails “are not interesting at all”. (via @BookBench)