Over at The Rake Max Ross interviews Junot Diaz, author of the Pulitzer-prize winning The Brief and Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao (which I will finish reading some day) and the fantastic collection of short stories Drown. Diaz will be in town Wednesday at 7:30 to give a lecture at the U’s Coffman Union Memorial Theater (more info).

Girl Detective asks if Crime and Punishment’s Raskolnikov was bipolar.

The Examiner offers up the pairing of books and alcohol. All of which seem a little obvious to me, Cosmos with chick lit? Really? I’d have never thought of that.

Okay, you gotta take a look at Book Ninja’s redesigned book covers contest. It’s funny as hell. My favorite is the The Handmaid’s Tale (and The Road).

The Strib reviews two of the books on my to read list John Updike’s The Widows of Eastwick and Francine Prose’s Goldengrove. I haven’t read the reviews so I don’t know if they like the books. Is it weird that I don’t read reviews until after I’ve finished the book? This rule only applies to books I know I want to read.

Speaking of reviews the little blurb in the RSS feed for the LA Times review of Jim Harrison’s The English Major is really all it takes to make me want to read a book. The blurb:
A failed marriage sends a middle-aged English teacher off in search of something better — a wide-open highway, a cabin with 40 acres and making love to a waitress who smells like food.
(I think it’s that smells like food bit that gets me)

David Foster Wallace’s Elements of Style. Also, the NY Times reports on Wallace’s memorial.

Largeheartedboy points out a great interview with Aimee Bender in The Stranger.