News Around the Net

Jonathan Franzen is on the cover of Time Magazine. Evidently, he's the first living novelist to receive the honor since Stephen King in 2000. So, kind of a big deal. His new novel, Freedom, is also being released at the end of the month.

For Penguin's 75th anniversary, they're releasing a super cool book looking into the best book cover designs they've published. The book is complete with commentary from the authors and the cover art designers.

Mcsweeney's has named their selection for best e-reader on the market. The newspaper.

Barnes and Noble is getting a taste of its own medicine. Do e-books and online sales spell the end for the bookstore chain?

Since Google wants to digitize every book in the world, so logically, they asked how many books are in the world. After doing numbers stuff with equations or whatever, they've come up with an exact number. It's a big one.

Literary writers, want to sell more books? Change your name and write chick-lit.

A 4th grade summary of Portnoy's Complaint. Probably explained better than I could explain that book.