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As has been mentioned elsewhere, Nabokov’s Lolita turns fifty this week. NPR’s Day to Day had a special segment about it and the program’s page has several worthwhile features. You can listen to Vladimir Nabokov reading the poem from the book to a live audience in 1964. (I am particularly fond of the rolling r‘s in his otherwise perfect French on a couple of the lines.) You can watch the scene in which Humbert Humbert first meets Lolita in Kubrick’s film version. And, lastly, prepare yourself to be devastated by the voice of Jeremy Irons as he reads the novel’s incredible opening.

The latest installment of the Bat Segundo Show is up now. Ed talks to Brett Easton Ellis about the origins of Lunar Park, Stephen King, the use of brand name description in fiction, the rules of fiction, subtext, the dramaturgy of writing about writers, episodic fiction vs. narrative fiction, pushing boundaries, 9/11, the generation between 1961 and 1971 and the generation after, keeping track of young writers, and responsibility within Ellis’ work.

Ed also reveals that he had planned an interview with Zadie Smith, but that fell through.

The Best American Short Stories, which this year is guest-edited by Michael Chabon, hits stores in just about three weeks. In his introduction to the twenty stories he selected, Chabon makes a case for reclaiming the notion of entertainment. Too often, he says, artists tend to think that it debases their art to entertain.

Yet entertainment–as I define it, pleasure and all–remains the only sure means we have of bridging, or at least of feeling as if we have bridged, the gulf of consciousness that separates each of us from everybody else. The best response to those who would cheapen and exploit it is not to disparage or repudiate but to reclaim entertainment as a job fit for artists and for audiences, a two-way exchange of attention, experience, and the universal hunger for connection.

And so, he says, he picked the twenty stories that “pleased him best.” They include work by Dennis Lehane, Kelly Link, Charles D’Ambrosio, Edward P. Jones, George Saunders, and others.

Also out in three weeks is The Best American Nonrequired Reading, edited by Dave Eggers, and with an introduction by Beck. I know it’s fashionable to knock Eggers, but I am probably one of only 3 people left in this country who is indifferent to him. I haven’t read his memoir, though I’ve read some of his short work, and I can’t seem to get worked up enough about any of the things that seem to enthrall or antagonize so many people. But I’ve always liked BANR; it’s different, it mixes things up a bit; and it always surprises me.

At any rate, I was happy to see Eggers had selected one of my absolute favorites from the past year: George Saunders’ “Manifesto,” which appeared in Slate. (There you have it: I like an anthology because it reflects my idiosyncratic taste.) Other selections include stories by Daniel Alarcón, Rattawut Lapcharoensap, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Aimee Bender. Look for it starting October 5.

In case you were hiding under a rock: The Booker shortlist was announced on Thursday, and the finalists are:

John Banville, The Sea

Julian Barnes, Arthur and George

Sebastian Barry, A Long, Long Way

Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

Ali Smith, The Accidental

Zadie Smith, On Beauty

I just started On Beauty (about which I’ll have more later).