Maud Newton talked about it in early November, but this recently posted review on Becoming Americans: Four Centuries of Immigration (Library of America), had a quote I liked.

Gary Shteyngart falls in love with cereal for the “unprecedented miracle” of toy prizes: “It tastes the way America feels. . . . . Something for nothing.”

Lit.

• “The first thing you need to know about this new Nabokov thing is that it is not a novel.” — Ward Six.

• “In an ongoing effort to build community among readers, writers, and publishing types, we are introducing the mediabistro.com book club–a series of parties where authors can show off their books.” GalleyCat will teach us how to party.

• With McSweeney’s about to publish Panorama, The Rumpus asks: “What happens when literary journals report the news?”

• I think Alanis Morissette is maybe writing a cookbook? I’m not 100% sure about this, but she wrote this article at Huff Po. and it’s in the books section, so I’m just going to assume….

• “Simone de Beauvoir feminist classic [The Second Sex], newly (and, we hope, properly) translated” over at Maud Newton.

• “Stoner by John Williams is not about a dude who smokes blunts all day.” Edan Lepucki says about one of his picks for 2009 reading at The Millions.

• Yale Press put out a 700+ page book about Charles Dickens, and the Boston Globe reviews it.

• The history of pulps in video form.

Old news, but new.

• Letters from Van Gogh.

• A new theory about Jack the Ripper.

Musica.

• One of my favorite new bands, Air Waves, does Daytrotter.

• Jack Rose was a genius on the guitar. Rest well.