One final Nobel link roundup.

• The New Yorker on President Obama’s “Nobel surprise“.

• N+1 says: “The peace prize’s reputation makes it a powerful tool. It’s not always the right tool, and it’s not always effective, but it’s good to have around.”

• “Herta who?”

• Drama over the economics Nobel winner?

Lit.

• Dave Eggers, Jay Leno, and Roger Ebert.  What do they all have in common?  They are all in a book talking about their favorite childhood books.

• Over at McSweeney’s, a sobering dispatch from a public librarian.

• The newest issue of Granta (Chicago) is selling like hot cakes.  Now you can read parts of it online.

• Jacket Copy asks if “browsing is a dying art“.  We think the answer is no.  Especially if the bookstore has a good cat. Then we will just hang out all day reading books and petting the cat.

• We are waiting for the way for “Dictator-lit”  to become all the rage.

Music

• Aside from owing one of the scenes premiere clubs, Brendan Mullen (alongside Mark Spitz) wrote the story of the Los Angeles punk scene with We got the Neutron Bomb He has sadly passed away according to Brooklyn Vegan.

• Yes, we want to hear previews of the new Tom Waits.

• Carly Simon is taking Starbucks to court.

• Salon calls The Life of the World to Come, the new Mountain Goats album, “the liberal bible”.

• L Magazine on Atlas Sound/Deeerhunter dude Bradford Cox.

Politics

• In case you care about knowing more on the people that are going to lose the race against Bloomberg, The Awl breaks it down.

Historically significant

• Before he became the “Duce of Fascism”, Benito Mussolini was a 34 year old journalist working for the British.

• The return of the polaroid!