Holy crap, Meryl Streep makes an amazing Julia Child! I can't wait to see this movie... I loved Julia Child's memoir - so inspirational. She didn't even start cooking seriously until her late 30s and she failed plenty of times. Fabulous life.

Quoted: The film also covers the years Julia Child and her husband Paul (Stanley Tucci) spent in Paris during the 1940s and ’50s, when Paul was a foreign diplomat who was eventually investigated by Sen. Joseph McCarthy.

This book sounds really cool - this is something I've actually often wondered about...

Quoted: First published in 1945 and about to be reissued in the NYRB Classics series, it is an epic account of how just about everything in America—creeks and valleys, rivers and mountains, streets and schools, towns and cities, counties and states, the country and continent itself—came to be named.

Oh man, another blog I wish I had created - it's a listing of amazing, beautifully illustrated books for children and adults.

Quoted: All ad revenue goes directly to buying new books to feature on the blog.

My International Examiner review of Raj Patel's book about the global food crisis!

Quoted: The global food crisis certainly isn’t starved for media attention. Turn to any news organization and rising food prices are making headlines alongside the rising cost of gas. With all the recent coverage, it seems like a problem that came out of left field.

Jhumpa Lahiri being interviewed on Charlie Rose. I get the impression she gets nervous/insecure during interviews, which is totally understandable... Even Charlie Rose can be kind of intimidating!

Quoted: A conversation with author Jhumpa Lahiri about her book Unaccustomed Earth on Charlie Rose.

Reading this for my next book club meeting - looking forward to getting into it, it sounds really interesting and I haven't seen a lot of other fiction on this subject.

Quoted: Hamid grabs hold of the American Dream as seen through the eyes of a young Princeton grad from Pakistan in a post-9/11 world. As the protagonist, Changez, finds moderate business success and romantic love in New York City, his heritage and identity will be lost in a sea of subtle and blatant bigotry as well as international politics.

Haha we all have an inner Homer Simpson. For example, it took every ounce of energy this morning to overcome my impulse to eat the free donut (which would make me feel crappy later) and have healthy cereal. Mmmmm, free donut.

Quoted: The real trick to understanding how to approach Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness, the new book by Cass R. Sunstein and Richard H. Thaler, lies in recognizing the limitations of your inner Homer Simpson and opting out of your own stupid choices.

A great Slate piece on why you don't find technology (computers, cell phones, etc.) in children's books.

Quoted: Technology, as we well know, has become a ubiquitous part of American children's lives. And yet there is one place—a whole world, actually—where children are safely walled off from wired and wireless devices. That is the world of picture books.

Whoa, big news in book publishing. I feel like this encourages publishers to become Judith Reagan type figures, though, sadly...

Quoted: Peter W. Olson, one of the top figures in American publishing, has been under pressure over lower profits.