Thanksgiving Roundup

How poets have been affected by the Hollywood strike.

From the frontline of the publishing houses: a reader’s report.

The first of the season’s “Best of” lists. Except this one is only design – the best cover art of the year. There’s a whole list here, of which I love the red paper clip and the chess machine.

It’s has been uncharacteristically quiet around the Litblog Co-op this season. I’m wondering when the next selection will be announced.

Over at The Written Nerd there’s heaps of links about the new book reading device, the Kindle.

Eurozine addresses the wave of New Atheism. (via Conversational Reading)

How to write a novel while on the clock. I remember Marisha Pessl talking about doing this with Special Topics in Calamity Physics, and it was brilliant (one piece of advice: use Excel, not Word), so this step-by-step guide should help those stuck in drudgerous jobs. (via After the MFA)

Yet another study from the NEA telling us the obvious: reading on the decline. I’m wondering whether they shouldn’t just recycle the studies so they could fund more money to artists who are, you know, writing the books that people can read. After a while the reports start to sound like the “findings” on the back page of Harper’s: “Scientists confirmed that losing money is scary.” “A new study found that humans are not fit for human consumption.” And plus, the data might be a little skewed:

There was no attempt to gauge the amount of time young people spend reading online because “there’s a lack of specific data” on it, the NEA admitted.

That’s okay. I hear the “young people” aren’t spending that much time online these days.