There’s an interesting interview with Stephen King by John Marks over at Salon. It’s inspired by the 30th anniversary of The Stand this year, which Marks says was a hugely influential book for him, and so they talk a lot about that, and a lot about doom and religion. Here’s a snippet of King on a possible afterlife:

Think of it this way. I think of the brain as this great, big, crenelated library with many rooms, billions and billions of books, rooms without number, but at the very end of all those rooms, there’s a little tiny box that says "pull lever in case of emergency,"  because that’s the door out, and when you go out, you get pretty much what you expected, because some chemical in your brain is programmed to give you that particular dream at the very end. If you’re expecting [H.P. Lovecraft’s] Yogg Sothoth, there he’ll be, along with the 900 blind fiddlers, or whatever it is.

Note to self: Do not think about Yogg Sothoth during the for-good lights out. Also, I’ve never actually read The Stand, though I read a lot lot lot of King growing up. Should I read it?

p.s. I’m currently reading Majorie Liu’s The Iron Hunt, and enjoying it greatly. I’m pretty sure I’m only reading mass markets where good vanquishes evil until the election’s over. And sometime after that I’m going to do a round-up of which of the urban fantasy/paranormal romance stuff I’ve liked best… I definitely don’t feel that the best of these books are getting their due. Feel free to leave your own recs along those lines in the comments.

The NYT has an excellent story about Columbia’s self-appointed people’s librarian, Luis Soriano, and his two donkeys, Alfa and Beto:

"I started out with 70 books, and now I have a collection of more than 4,800," said Mr. Soriano, 36, a primary school teacher who lives in a small house here with his wife and three children, with books piled to the ceilings.

"This began as a necessity; then it became an obligation; and after that a custom," he explained, squinting at the hills undulating into the horizon. "Now," he said, "it is an institution."

Viva la biblioburro!

• Cybils nominees announced! (Because I have been too busy to breathe lately, I didn’t get over to make nominations, but am very, very happy to see all the books I’d have nominated on the lists anyway. This year’s first-round judges have a tough time ahead.)
• Help YA author Kris Reisz launch a writing program for teens in Decatur, Alabama. (Via Guys Lit Wire.)
• Humanity Plus claims billionaires are funding science fiction. Who do we need to give our address to, again, for the check?
• Oh, and as for Meghan, she’s been filling her brain with sparkly vampires. It may not have been fun to read, but her ranting about Twilight? So worth it.
• Gavin’s been blogging over at Bookslut and posting all sorts of interesting stuff, like an interview with Tobin Anderson about Octavian Nothing 2 (or, as I like to call it, The Most Brilliant Book of the Year) and an imaginary interview with Margo Lanagan and Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert (the imaginary part, but in a just world! I’m just reading Tender Morsels now and it is full of the weird and the insanely genius writing). For more M.T. Anderson, see Julie Larios’s eagle eye picking out a tres appropriate photo of the author.
• Geoff Ryman spends the week at Omnivoracious. Much as I love Geoff and his writing, I must disagree with the view that: "Self-expression is art, but self-promotion is an agenda that curdles art into advertising. The blog becomes an online publicity, the comments a way to draw attention, marking territory." I’m not saying this isn’t true, but I think it’s wrong as a sweeping generalization. The best blogs simply aren’t about online publicity. At least, not primarly and not the ones I read. But then, I believe that the best blogs function largely as part of an elaborate gift economy, with any benefits coming because they aren’t the endgame. Because the endgame is just to share stuff. Still, it’s guaranteed to be a provocative week, and you should all run out and buy The King’s Last Song.
• Also at Omnivoracious, an interview with Jeff Ford on the occasion of the Well-Built City trilogy being reissued by Golden Gryphon Press.
• The election translated D&D style.

So I’m out of pocket and have only lobby-level access to a computer, so I will be brief to say that: YAY! The National Book Award nominations have been announced! Yay!

The hugest congratulations ever to fabulous and lovely fellow Southerner Kathi Appelt (a senior faculty member at my MFA program) for her nod for The Underneath* and to E. Lockhart for her wonderful novel, The Disreputable History of Frankie Laundau Banks. See the sidebar to the right for my take on each of these very deserving books, two of my favorites of this year or any other, to be sure. And I can’t wait to check out the other young readers finalists. Well done, judging types (who included the inscrutable Holly Black and Daniel Handler).

OOOOh-kay, I now return you to my previously scheduled silence, with one last YAY!

*If she don’t win the Newbery, there is no justice. And you know what they say about no justice, right? No peace!