There are legions of people who love books, and who love cats, and have a habit of photographing them together. You may like books and not like cats; I know it's possible. But this post, my friends, is not for you. This post is for people who think that Pippen, above, is awfully cute when confronting the "Omnivore's Dilemma." As is Jamila, below. The Bible seems to be putting Jamila to sleep. Of course, this ...

A proposed curriculum change for English majors at Harvard would get rid of two required survey courses of British literature. The English department guide describes 10a and 10b, both lecture classes, as constituting "a full-year introduction to British literature from Beowulf to the twentieth century." The Harvard Crimson reports:The demise of the lecture courses is the most pronounced feature of a proposed overhaul of the undergraduate English program, the first in more than two decades....

Publisher Penguin's catalog reveals details about the upcoming book by Thomas Pynchon. As previously reported, it will be a detective novel hitting shelves next summer; the news is the title, "Inherent Vice." And details about the plot:It’s been awhile since Doc Sportello has seen his ex-girlfriend. Suddenly out of nowhere she shows up with a story about a plot to kidnap a billionaire land developer whom she just happens to be in love with. Easy ...

When the L.A. Times covered the anthology "State by State," it was I who got to write the article about this book, which is kind of a literary road trip. "State by State" is a collection of 51 essays by fabulous and funny writers — Jonathan Franzen, John Hodgman — each focusing on one state in the nation (Washington, D.C., is included, too). The idea came from the WPA state guides but is, in its ...

Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight" saga may be the biggest thing since Harry Potter; this week Meyer has three books on our hardcover bestseller list and two on the paperback bestseller list. Fans are ramping up for the opening of "Twilight" next week. L.A. Times staff writer Susan Carpenter went to Forks, Wash., the setting for the "Twilight" books, and found that the town of 3,100 is pretty Twilight happy."How often have you ever taken a vacation ...

From left: James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Ford Maddox Ford, John Quinn. Today the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin announced the acquisition of a substantial and important collection of Ezra Pound materials. The collection includes more than 700 letters, some photographs, a scrapbook and two chess sets. Pound played chess on those sets with Marcella Spann Booth, a young woman who visited him while he was hospitalized after World War II; ...

A 14-foot-high blank wall in a Minneapolis loft is transformed, bookishly, by these shelves. Design firm CITYDESKSTUDIO created open shelves -- so as not to dominate the space -- out of steel. The steel is strong enough to support the two-tiered step system, which rolls along the shelves without touching the floor. They describe the powder-coated steps as "cobalt," but I think they're Superman blue. Dwell Magazine has a slideshow of the shelves in action. ...

Sarah Vowell can be found many places, including our books section, promoting her new book "The Wordy Shipmates." Two years ago, she appeared at the Festival of Books and read a piece about how her 2001 expectations for the Bush presidency weren't nearly bleak enough. She also answered questions, about L.A. and about writers she likes to read (she starts with Michael Connelly, whose "The Brass Verdict" tops our Bestseller list in fiction this week; ...

Two new collections of George Orwell's essays — "Facing Unpleasant Facts: Narrative Essays" and "All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays" — are reviewed by David L. Ulin in Arts & Books this weekend. "Taken together," he writes, "these books reaffirm the author's status as one of the definitive essayists in English literature." The review explains:What Orwell's after is less diatribe than dialogue. In his writing, politics and literature are in constant conversation, framing reactions to ...

Reporting for the L.A. Times from Beirut, Borzou Daragahi writes that Islam Samhan, a 27-year-old poet, was arrested and charged with "harming Islam by incorporating Koranic imagery into his love poems" today.According to the National, the Abu Dhabi daily, Samhan's work, "Slim Shadows," caught the attention of Jordanian clerics, including Jordan's Grand Mufti Noah Alqdah Samas, who called him an enemy of religion for comparing his loneliness to that of the prophet Youssef in the ...

It's Frankenstein Day at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, England (via ReadySteadyBook). Mary Shelley's original "Frankenstein" manuscripts are on display, and scholar Charles E. Robinson will speak about his new edition, "The Original Frankenstein," which may at last show what parts of the book were Mary Shelley's own and what contributions husband Percy Shelley made.Going back to the unique draft manuscript of the text held in the Bodleian Library, Charles E. Robinson has identified up ...

Heston Blumenthal is the chef behind Britain's acclaimed Fat Duck restaurant, known for its innovative molecular gastronomy. Items on the tasting menu include "Roast Foie Gras 'Benzaldehyde' / almond fluid gel, cherry, chamomile" and "Mango and Douglas Fir Puree / Bavarois of lychee and mango, blackcurrant sorbet, blackcurrant and green peppercorn jelly." The adventurous cuisine has earned the restaurant three Michelin stars; it has consistently been ranked among the best in the world. Much-anticipated, "The ...

From some quarters, it looks like publishing is in big trouble. But that's not enough to slow down editors with vision and inspiration. At the Emerging Writers Network, Dan Wickett interviews seven new independent publishers: Ellipsis Press, Hotel St. George Press, Keyhole Books, Rose Metal Press, Short Flight/Long Drive Books, Tyrant Books and Underland Press. Their methods, methodologies and goals may be diverse, but they share a determined optimism. Underland Press will publish four books ...

The magazine the Believer revisits the life and work of Emanuel Haldeman-Julius, once called "the Henry Ford of literature" for his mass-produced, affordable Little Blue Books publications (via).small enough to fit in a trouser pocket, these books were meant to bring culture and self-education to working people, and covered topics ranging from classic literature to home-finance to sexually pleasuring one's spouse. Distributed discreetly by mail order, Little Blue Books disseminated birth-control information not available in ...

In "Falling Man," Don DeLillo follows a handful of New Yorkers in the days and years after Sept. 11, 2001. He begins just after the towers have fallen:It was not a street anymore but a world, a time and space of falling ash and near night. He was walking north through rubble and mud and there were people running past holding towels to their faces or jackets over their heads. They had handkerchiefs pressed to ...