Laila Lalami

Amazon says that, in the five days since it launched Search Inside the Book, sales of books participating in the program were 9% higher than those of books not participating.

Isn’t there a confounding factor here? Couldn’t it just be that the books participating are often recent, well-marketed books from major publishers? Those are bound to be more popular than older, less publicized ones. The more interesting comparison would have been between sales of the 120,000 books participating in the program over time i.e. before the program vs. now. In essence, there are two questions here: Amazon asked, “What difference is there in sales of books in the program and books not in the program?” when they should have asked, “What effect does Search Inside the Book have on sales?”

It rained at long last earlier this morning and we have clouds like marshmallows and clean air and a wonderfully cool breeze and the fires are slowed if not tamed and there is hope yet.

The shortlist for the Guardian First Book award has been announced. Earlier this week I had wondered why they deemed it a longlist when it had only five titles on it, but I can see that they kept two separate lists for fiction and non-fiction and then conflated them for the shortlist, so that Monica Ali’s and DBC Pierre’s novels will compete against histories of the Himalayas and others.

James Atlas’ article on Dale Peck in the New York Times, which was mentioned on Moorishgirl earlier this week, led to this interview with Choire Sicha over at Gawker. When I read the interview the first time, I swear, I thought it was a spoof, because the answers seemed, so, well, dalepecky. Really, for someone who dishes out so much grief, he should be able to take some criticism from people without having to call them “ditch-dirty stupid.” The Atlas article inspired a guest column by Steve Almond over at Moby, and some letters in response.

Faux nearly sued itself because it didn’t like that one of its own strayed from their fair and unbalanced agenda.

This review of Tobias Wolff’s new novel, Old School, starts, oddly enough, with a mention of Wolff’s brother, Geoffrey.

In the sometimes collegial, sometimes cutthroat hothouse of graduate creative writing instruction in California, two brothers exert a remarkable degree of influence. Directing UC Irvine’s renowned master of fine arts program is Geoffrey Wolff, who has half a dozen novels and a recently published biography of “Appointment in Samarra” author John O’Hara to his name.
Kid brother Tobias serves as co-director of Stanford’s no-less-prestigious curriculum, and has published several story collections and two memoirs, but no novel since his first — 1975’s long-out-of-print “Ugly Rumours” — until now.

Then the reviewer comes to his senses and focuses on the book for the remainder of the article.

D.H. Melhem will be reading from her sixth collection at Dutton’s tonight. Since the L.A. Times has made its book calendar section for susbscribers only, you can go to the L.A. Weekly’s readings list for other events

T.C. Boyle writes about the California fires, for the New York Times:

It is dark here today, the generous golden sun of the Golden State reduced to a pink gumball hanging powerlessly over the treetops. Indoors, the house is a wash of strange, muted colors, the floors glowing red, the kitchen countertops thinly painted in the hue of vin rouge. Outside, the birds are holding their breath as fine threads of white ash roll down out of the sky and the distant thunder of aircraft rumbles through the leaves.

Old Hag has a new “skin.” I’m envious. I need to get a facelift myself. Contact me if you’d like to donate cells.

La Muselivre is back at long last.

Maud had a strong cup of coffee. The entries and articles for this morning alone should tide you over till the evening.

Why is it called a longlist if it only has five books on it? It’s nice to see a collection of short stories get a nod. I haven’t read A Few Short Notes on Tropical Butterflies, but I’ve heard it’s pretty good.