Can't believe there'll never be another book by David Foster Wallace. So sad :(

Quoted: After David Foster Wallace became a twentysomething literary phenomenon - after the publication of his first novel ("The Broom of the System," 1987) and short-story collection ("Girl With Curious Hair," 1989) got the Thomas Pynchon comparisons flowing - he checked himself into a hospital and asked to be put on suicide watch.

My latest blog post about Seattle's book industry...

Quoted: Seattle Newcomer Examiner - Nancy Pearl, Seattle-based founder of Book Lust, has put the city's literary scene on the map. And as she noted in the New York Times, thanks to the impact of local companies like Amazon, Costco and Starbucks, "New York may publish the books, but Seattle significantly defines America’s reading list.”

I agree - Anne of Green Gables is as good as Huck Finn in a lot of ways. I also think it didn't get the respect it deserves is because it featured a female protagonist...

Quoted: One hundred years ago, L.M. Montgomery did for women's imaginative lives what Susan B. Anthony did for women's political lives by publishing Anne of Green Gables, the story of an outspoken red-haired orphan growing up on Canada's Prince Edward Island.

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.

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.