gossipy bits

For why else does one read Entertainment Weekly*?

Anyway, there's a Jennifer Reese profile of Ayelet Waldman and the dust-up over her NYT and Salon essays, but it all feels a little rehash. Gorgeous photo of the author, however, and she casts herself as the anti-Franzen (or lover of O). (You can only see the first bit there unless you're a subscriber.)

Stephen King also apparently approves of son Owen's fiance/girlfriend(?) Kelly Braffet, of the delicious Josie and Jack, including a recommendation by her on his summer reading list:

Battle Royale by Koushun Takami
Recommended to me by novelist Kelly Braffet (Josie and Jack), Battle Royale is an insanely entertaining pulp riff that combines Survivor with World Wrestling Entertainment. Or maybe Royale is just insane. Forty-two Japanese high school kids who think they're going on a class trip are instead dropped on an island, issued weapons ranging from machine guns to kitchen forks, and forced to fight it out until only one is left alive. Royale bears some resemblance to Richard Bachman's The Long Walk. You probably won't find it at your local bookstore, but you can order it online. ''No prob,'' as Takami's Springsteen-quoting teenagers are fond of saying.

And I might add that LAST week's EW included a good review for Paul Park's excellent A Princess of Roumania: It's a journey almost as gratifying as the magic trick pulled off by author Paul Park, who should be knighted for breathing life into an oft-tired genre. And it wasn't even in the little genre ghetto box. I'm really very sad that I missed his reading of the second volume The Tourmaline at Interaction, as I heard it was fabulous.

*Which, by the way, you only have to subscribe to once. Seriously, I keep attempting to let my subscription lapse and they send issues with paper flappy bits that say LAST ISSUE EVER YOU WILL NEVER EVER GET ANOTHER ISSUE OF EW UNLESS YOU SEND US A CHECK IMMEDIATELY and then, the next week, there's another issue with no indication whatsoever that I still haven't resubscribed.