FlavorWire has published photos of the mansions owned by fifteen (always or eventually affluent) authors: Edith Wharton, Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, Stephen King, Vladimir Nabokov, Robert Graves, Kurt Vonnegut, Victor Hugo, Anais Nin, Evelyn Waught, Eudora Welty, Gore Vidal, J.K. Rowling, William Shakespeare, and Frederick Douglass.

Found via The New Yorker’s Book Bench

Some of the readers of the interview have posted comments noting the irony that some of Franzen’s popularity (and personal wealth) has resulted from his books being available in e-book format. Other readers have posted some never-before-mentioned (or seldom mentioned) circumstances where owning e-books over printed books would definitely be A Good Thing.

And more than one commentator mentions that the machine-readable vs. eyeball-readable debate is not an either/or question, but an it-depends-on-the-reader’s-circumstances question.

Which is pretty much what Jonathan Segura writes, over on one of NPR’s blogs. (Readers’ comments on that statement are also interesting.)

Found via The New Yorker’s Book Bench

An excerpt from one recent article:

For book publishers, the relevant market isn’t readers (direct sales are few), but booksellers, and Amazon has firm control of bookselling’s online future as it works to undermine bookselling’s remaining brick-and-mortar infrastructure. Amazon controls every growing segment of the industry: online physical books, downloadable audio books, online used books, and e-books. Amazon commands about 75% of the online market for print books, and 60% of the e-book market (a percentage that decreased from Amazon’s reported 90% two years ago, as a result of agency pricing).

You might want to read the entire article, posted at the website of the  Author’s Guild; the article is especially helpful in summarizing some of the background to the latest flurry of worry about Amazon.

Found via The Rumpus

A subset of that wide-ranging debate is the argument about the physiological differences (?) in the brain when a reader uses a book vs. when a reader uses a screen. This was touched on recently in the form of a survey of some recent books on this (and related) subjects; the survey was written by Thomas Larson and posted at The Rumpus.

Read Larson’s article (and the interesting readers’ comments).

From Moonbot Studio’s Vimeo blurb:

“Inspired, in equal measures, by Hurricane Katrina, Buster Keaton, The Wizard of Oz, and a love for books, Morris Lessmore is a story of people who devote their lives to books and books who return the favor. Morris Lessmore is a poignant, humorous allegory about the curative powers of story. Using a variety of techniques (miniatures, computer animation, 2D animation) award winning author/illustrator William Joyce and co-director Brandon Oldenburg present a new narrative experience that harkens back to silent films and M-G-M Technicolor musicals….Old fashioned and cutting edge at the same time, The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore is one of five animated short films that will be considered for outstanding film achievements of 2011 in the 84th Academy Awards.”

The film takes approximately 15 minutes to watch.

Found via Shelf Awareness

Multiple copies of the following novels were recently shipped to most branch libraries of the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System, including the Peachtree and Ponce branches. If a title you’re interested in isn’t available when you visit, we invite you to place a Hold on that title so we can deliver the next available copy for you to pick up at the branch most convenient to you. Most branch libraries will have these titles displayed in a “NEW BOOKS” area, but just ask at the service desk if you can’t locate a particular title you’re interested in borrowing.

Titles are listed here in alphabetical order by the author’s last name.

A Charitable Body (Robert Barnard) – Detective Inspector Charlie Peace is investigating the discovery of a body found in a lake near stately home Walbrook Manor.  As it happens, his wife is on the board of the charitable trust that oversees Walbrook, and she and Charlie soon come to the conclusion that there is a link between the body and some old secrets associated with the home and the families who lived there.

The Rope (Nevada Barr) – Loyal readers have followed Ranger Anna Pigeon through the mysteries she encounters in her assignments in national parks in deserts, lakes and forests – environments all brought wonderfully to life by Barr. Now Barr provides the back story: how Pigeon came to join the park service after an encounter with violence during a hike through the desert.  Barr being Barr, the suspense and the details about location are enough to make you jump out of your skin.

The Look of Love (Mary Jane Clark) – Piper Donovan, a would-be actress who actually makes her living as a cake baker, gladly accepts an offer of a stay at an exclusive L.A. spa in return for baking the cake for the wedding of the owner’s daughter. Unfortunately, her spa stay promises to be anything but relaxing: someone is trying to kill her client.

The Cat Sitter’s Pajamas (Blaize Clement) – The cat in question belongs to a pro football player who’s on vacation in Italy, leaving Dixie Hemingway in charge of the felines.  When she discovers a dead body in the house, cat sitting turns into a murder investigation.

Death of Kings (Bernard Cornwell) – King Alfred is dying: his dream to gather Saxon and Viking, Christian and pagan, into a united England may well die with him, and with it, his attempt to establish a dynasty.  More great historical fiction from Cornwell.

Taken (Robert Crais) – Nita Morales’ daughter has disappeared.  Though she’s had a ransom call, Nita suspects her daughter may have staged her own kidnapping. When Nita hires Elvis Cole to investigate, Cole and his associate Joe Pike find the trail leads to men involved in human trafficking.

Bond Girl (Erin Duffy) – Alex Garrett came out of college determined to break into Wall Street, so when she gets a job with a bond firm, she’s prepared to put up with the role of office gofer and the wild ways of her co-workers in hopes of breaking into their ranks.  But just as she’s about to make it into the boy’s club, the Wall Street meltdown of 2008 arrives.  This one’s had good buzz; one reviewer claims it “does a terrific job of reviving chick lit”.

Gone West (Carola Dunn) – Aristocratic sleuth Daisy Dalrymple is enlisted by a friend who’s worried that someone is trying to kill her employer.  This is the 20^th in this long-running series set in 1920’s England.

Catch Me (Lisa Gardner) – Charlene Grant had two best friends.  Two years ago, one was murdered on January 21. Last year, the other met the same fate. Charlene believes that this January 21 it will be her turn.  She doesn’t expect to be able to escape her doom, but she does ask Detective D.D. Warren to solve her murder once it happens.  Great plot!

Believing the Lie (Elizabeth George) -  Inspector Lynley goes undercover to investigate what appears to be an accidental death.  Lynley being Lynley, his angst, his emotions, his friends, all play a prominent role in the case, while his loyal colleague Barbara Havers is content as usual to function as general dogsbody. 

Need You Now (James Grippando) – When a Bernie Madoff-like figure commits suicide after losing $60 billion of other people’s money, the Swiss bank that had held some of the money dispatches Patrick Lloyd to join the investigation.  What Lloyd soon discovers is that some of those who lost money are taking steps of their own to find the missing billions – and they don’t draw the line at murder.

The Underside of Joy (Sere Prince Halverson) – Ella has been stepmom to Joe’s three kids since she and Joe married three years ago. But when Joe dies, the ex-wife steps back into the picture, determined to win custody of the children she abandoned.  There’s been good buzz on this one, so read it now before the book club demand kicks in!

Home Front (Kristin Hannah) – Jolene is a wife and mother – and an army helicopter pilot.  When she’s deployed to Iraq, long-simmering tension in her marriage over her military career threatens to break up her family.

The Fear Index (Robert Harris) – Artificial intelligence run amok in the financial markets– that’s the intriguing plot line in Harris’ latest.

One Perfect Shot (Steven F. Havill) – The latest in the Posada County mystery series is a prequel that establishes how deputy Estelle Reyes joined the team to investigate what appears to be the targeted assassination of a county employee.

Hanging Hill (Mo Hayder) – Zoe Benedict is the detective investigating the death of teenaged Lorne Wood; she’s also the aunt of Lorne’s good friend.  Those two roles start to conflict when Zoe’s investigations reveal the girls may have been drawn into the dark world of amateur porn.

A Grown-up Kind of Pretty (Joshilyn Jackson) – When she was only 15, Ginny Slocumb gave birth to a daughter, Liza.  When Liza was 15, she too became a mother, producing Mosey.  As Mosey prepares to turn 15, Ginny and Liza brace for a repeat of their past. 

Reefs and Shoals (Dewey Lambdin) – Captain Alan Lawrie returns for more action on the high seas, as he and his crew on the Royal Navy ship Reliant battle Napoleon and patrol the Caribbean in search of pirates off the coast of Florida.

Raylan (Elmore Leonard) – Leonard brings back U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens (who’s also the star of the TV show “Justified”). Givens’ own past as a coal miner comes in useful in his battles with a corrupt coal company executive.

The Flight of Gemma Hardy (Margot Livesey) – Orphan Gemma Hardy is taken in by a kind uncle and a not-so-kind aunt. When the uncle dies, Gemma endures harsh treatment at the hands of her aunt, so she’s all too glad to escape to a boarding school – only to find she’s exchanged one cruel environment for another. Escape beckons again, through the offer of a job as a nanny in the remote Orkney Islands, in the home of the equally remote Mr. Sinclair…. .By now, you will have recognized the plot, for Livesey is giving us a modern reworking of Jane Eyre.    

Dead Low Tide (Bret Lott) – A “literary thriller” set in the Low Country of South Carolina.  Huger Dillard, first introduced in The Hunt Club in 1998, is 27 years old now, but drifting through life, still feeling the aftershocks of having killed someone.  He and his father find a woman’s body in the marshes off an exclusive golf course one night and thereby set in motion a series of events that points to the presence of local terrorists.

All I Did Was Shoot My Man (Walter Mosley) – Mosley brings back his complex hero, private investigator Leonid McGill, for what may be his best outing yet.  McGill’s compassion for those he works with has its roots in his awareness of his own less than perfect moral choices. Case in point: the client he framed a few years ago. Now he takes the opportunity to get her out of jail, but he may come to regret his redemptive deed.

The Chalk Girl (Carol O’Connell) – It’s been five years since her last appearance, but O’Connell finally brings back her anti-social, possibly even sociopathic heroine, NYPD detective Mallory.  Mallory’s own history helps her relate to the small girl found wandering in Central Park, unable to explain the blood on her shoulders, or how she got there.

The Odds (Stewart O’Nan) – A couple whose 30 year marriage is crumbling under the financial pressure of job loss and foreclosure returns to the scene of their honeymoon – Niagara Falls – and hits the casino there in hopes of recovering their money and, possibly, their love for each other.

Helpless (Daniel Palmer) – Ex-SEAL Tom Hawkins moves back home to take custody of his teenaged daughter, and a job as a school soccer coach, after his ex-wife is murdered.  Hawkins knows the sheriff suspects he may have had something to do with his wife’s death, but when an anonymous blogger claims Tom is sleeping with a student, he begins to realize someone’s got it in for him. With his second thriller, Palmer identifies himself as an author to watch.     

Gideon’s Corpse (Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child) – A terrorist who is literally radioactive – that’s what Gideon Crew is up against this time around.

Scarecrow Returns (Matthew Reilly) – A group of terrorists, the Army of Thieves, take over an old Soviet-era Russian research facility in the Arctic – and with it, a doomsday device that can set on fire the atmosphere above the northern hemisphere.  Fortunately for our side, Shane Schofield – a/k/a “Scarecrow” – and his team are already in the area when the call comes through to take out the terrorists while everyone north of the equator can still breathe.

The Darkening Field (William Ryan) – Russia, 1937: the paranoia of life under Stalin has everyone in its grip. So when Captain Alexei Korolev of the Moscow CID is assigned to look into the suicide of a young woman working on a movie set in Odessa, he is torn between finding the truth and the fear of antagonizing the Party.  (For another mystery set in the Soviet Union, see Tom Rob Smith’s Agent 6, below)

Agent 6 (Tom Rob Smith) – The final volume in the series that began with the acclaimed Child 44 come to a close.  Leo Demidov may no longer be with the Soviet secret police, but the damage from years of working within the structures of the police state that prop up the communist system is permanent.  But he is still a police officer, and when a terrible crime strikes close to home, he embarks on a quest for justice. (For another mystery set in the Soviet Union, see William Ryan’s The Darkening Field, above)

Iago (David Snodin) – One of Shakespeare’s most memorable villains gets his own starring vehicle here.  In Snodin’s fictionalized sequel to Othello, the Chief Inquisitor of Venice is determined to bring Iago to justice, but to do so he must explore what drives Iago’s actions.

All Necessary Force (Brad Taylor) – Pike Logan, the head of a secret anti-terrorist task force, takes his team into action when American nuclear plants are targeted.  Right or wrong, legal or not, he’s prepared to do whatever it takes to save his country.

The Confession (Charles Todd) – Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge, still dealing with the effects of his service in World War I, meets Wyatt Russell, a man who says he is dying of cancer and that before he dies, he must confess to a murder committed during the war.  Without a body, Rutledge can only begin an investigation into what the man has told him, but the investigation has barely gotten under way when Russell’s body is found – dead not of cancer but of a bullet.

The Quality of Mercy (Barry Unsworth) – Unsworth’s 1992 novel about the British slave trade (Sacred Hunger) won the Booker Prize. Twenty years later he has written the sequel, picking up the story of Erasmus Kemp, still dealing with the aftereffects of the loss of his father’s ship and its cargo of slaves.

Another Woman (Penny Vincenzi) – Family secrets are brought to light when a bride disappears on the day of her wedding.  Soap opera on a grand scale!

The Family Business (Carl Weber & Eric Pete) – A successful Brooklyn business man contemplates retirement, but before he can do so he must decide to which family member he can entrust the family business.

Jack Holmes & His Friend (Edmund White) – Against the background of the sexual revolution of the 1960’s, two young men come to New York and explore their sexual identities.

An Available Man (Hilma Wilitzer) – When Edward Schuyler’s wife dies of cancer, he has a hard time moving on with his life. So his children put him back into the social whirl through a personal ad in the New York Review of Books.

 All In: The Education of General David Petraeus (Paula Broadwell) – A look at the military career of a “transformative” general.

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking (Susan Cain) – In a world that rewards self-promotion, where social networking, celebrity, and working the room are tools for success, are introverts undervalued?  Yes, says Cain, and here’s why.

Smart Trust (Stephen M. R. Covey) – “..trust is fast becoming the most consequential life and leadership skill of our time” – so argues Covey in the follow-up to The Speed of Trust.

Pity the Billionaire (Thomas Frank) – The author of the hugely successful What’s the Matter with Kansas wonders why the economic mess, far from leading ordinary people to reject capitalist systems, has spurred the rise of conservatism.

Revolution  2.0 (Wael Ghonim) – Ghonim’s Facebook page protesting a killing by Egyptian security helped spark the uprising in Egypt last spring, the first revolution organized using social media.  Ghonim describes the events, including his own arrest and interrogation, and the lessons in people power that can be drawn from this historic uprising.

I Got This: How I Changed My Ways and Lost What Weighed Me Down (Jennifer Hudson) – Hudson details her triumph over weight and image issues.

The Obamas (Jodi Kantor) – Life in the White House, and its effect on the President and First Lady, both as a couple and as individuals.  The hot political book of the month.

Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America (Mark R. Levin) – The popular conservative commentator explores the notion of utopia, and how the dreams of an ideal society are very different from the vision of society on which the Founders based the U.S. Constitution.

The Real Elizabeth (Andrew Marr) – BBC journalist Marr gives “an intimate portrait” of Queen Elizabeth, looking back at her six decades on the throne, and the changing role of the monarchy, as the anniversary of her accession approaches.  (For another biography of the queen, see Sallie Bedell Smith’s Elizabeth the Queen, also on this list.)

Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010 (Charles Murray) – Murray’s sociological research was the basis for his much-debated The Bell Curve (1994). He may elicit similar controversy with his new study of American culture, which posits a growing divide between a small elite isolated in “SuperZips” and a “new lower class” in which the erosion in social capital (e.g. the decline in marriage) leads to a downward slide.

Sophie: The Incredible True Story of the Castaway Dog (Emma Pearse) – Is there room for just one more dog story on your reading list?  Yes, when it’s the story of a dog who was swept overboard from her owner’s boat, and presumed drowned – only to be spotted five months later on an island six miles (of shark-infested waters) from where she was lost.  Hopefully Sophie has had nothing but treats and belly rubs since coming home.

Elizabeth the Queen (Sallie Bedell Smith) – Next month will mark the 60^th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth’s accession to the throne of England.  Only Queen Victoria reigned longer, and Elizabeth may yet break that record.  This new biography looks at the queen who has presided over post-war England, the England of the Beatles and Carnaby Street, the England of Margaret Thatcher and Princess Diana – and whose abilities and careful stewardship of the monarchy are only now being recognized. (For another biography of the queen, see Andrew Marr’s The Real Elizabeth, also on this list; the Smith book is a livelier read.)

Time to Get Tough: Making America #1 Again (Donald Trump) – Trump continues to hint that he may run for president. If so, perhaps this is intended to be his campaign manifesto – the Trump laundry list of what’s wrong with the country and what needs to be done to fix it.

Rebecca Joines Schinsky recently posted what she learned aftershe and her husband decided to merge their book collections.

Read Schinsky’s essay.

Just as interesting: the comments from Schinsky’s readers who defend their decisions not to merge their books with their spouses’.

Found at BookRiot

Shelf Awareness’ handy rundown of the details are here, for readers who’d like to consult the list and read the books those movies were adapted from.