I haven't read Tom McCarthy's Remainder, but many people I respect have recommended it to me, and I am always on the lookout for his work. I just found this piece on technology and the novel (and melancholia--and yes, I look for any excuse to write the word "melancholia") via aldaily.com.

I know which side I'm on: the more books I write, the more convinced I become that what we encounter in a novel is not selves, but networks; that what we hear in poems is (to use the language of communications technology) not signal but noise. The German poet Rilke had a word for it: Geräusch, the crackle of the universe, angels dancing in the static.

Keep your eyes peeled for McCarthy's next novel, entitled C, which is supposed to be published here in the US on September 7, and which has just been named to the Booker Prize longlist.

Anupy Singla, whose first book is just a few months from publication, recently shared with the Chicago Sun-Times the story of her family's first trip to India with kids in tow. It's a fascinating glimpse into India's street food culture, and a great tune-up for Anupy's book. And check out this pic of her very cute young daughters, Aria and Neha.

If you haven't been following the buzz, which is now reaching cicada-like volumes, this is a good place to get up to speed.

Better late than never, I guess. But to me, this is the kind of review that the web is perfect for--long, thoughtful, broad-ranging, and untethered by the constraints of release-timeliness and word count limit that make so many print reviews so unsatisfying. You can be sure we'll be sending this reviewer a copy of the new sequel, The Burning City, right away.

Still finding new fans, like this blogger at Fast Company:

Every now and then you read a book and wish you had about a hundred of them to give away to people who should be exposed to the insight contained within. Baked In is exactly that kind of book.

They really love our John Winsor at Business Week, as they've given him a ton of room to weigh in on topics like this one over the past year or so. Combined with the blockbuster departure of Alex Bogusky from MDC/Crispin and, it seems, advertising itself, there's no question that our Baked In duo are at the forefront of some major ad industry transformation. Learn Winsor's take here--as for Bogusky's, I guess we'll have to sit tight to see what he has planned for a second act.

Answered at last.

What if we had to treat everyone--every friend, every acquaintance, every stranger even--the way we would treat a journalist on assignment? The Observer doesn't paint a pretty picture of the new transparency, which is looking a lot like the new opacity.

Very funny, if in a grim sort of way.

Over at his Chicago Reader blog, Michael Miner is doing the very important and very delicate work of covering--aggressively covering--one of the biggest local media stories of the year: the firing of his own boss, longtime Reader editor Alison True, by her boss, new publisher Alison Draper. Miner paints a pretty devastating picture of how Draper's decision seems motivated largely by Draper's desire to replace True with someone more willing to breach the traditional editorial/sales divide. He does a great job of letting Draper characterize her decision-making process with the kind of flashing-red-light euphemisms any reasonably sophisticated reader should be able to see through pretty quickly. I think we can anticipate seeing a very different Reader before much longer.

I don't know Alison True well, but I have known her a very long time, and I have been a devoted and regular reader of her newspaper for even longer. I admire her very much, not only for her work but also for her commitment to the Reader, and its important (if sometimes maddening) role in Chicago's literary and journalistic culture. My own writing appeared intermittently in the Reader over the past three decades, and I am proud of that. My own career in publishing was in many ways the antithesis of Alison's, and though it's hard for me to imagine the Reader, as an institution, without her, I hope she will flourish out here in Chicago's post-institutional publishing community.

Some vintage video of Leonard Pitts, Jr., being interviewed about his column work and his first book, the seminal Becoming Dad.

There can't be enough such appreciations of True Grit--the brilliant novel by the one-of-a-kind Charles Portis, not the overrated John Wayne vehicle. (An even better appreciation, by Donna Tartt, serves as afterword to the book's most recent edition.) True Grit is many things, but it's also a short, funny, heartbreaking page-turner. And one of the best books I've read in the past five years, if you're looking for a recommendation.

Jon Stokes at ars technica thinks so. Apple and its iPad are providing a vigorous shakeout in this space. Key quotes: "yes, E-Ink is easier on the eyes, but I've found that carrying only one device is easier on the shoulders." And the following:

Now that I've gotten used to reading on the iPad, I've ditched my Kindle entirely. I've now gone back to buying my books in dead-tree format for at-home reading, both because print is more relaxing and because it comes without DRM. I also have a few Kindle copies of some of my books on my iPad for when I travel. So in some cases I'm paying twice for the same book, but the print copy is mine—I honest-to-God own it—while the electronic copy is more of a fee that I pay to be able to read the book on my iPad when I go on a long trip.

Friend of Agate Patty Penzey Erd is featured in a WCIU segment that highlights the Spice House, one of the true adornments of culinary Chicago.

Over at The Reading Experience, Daniel Green has been going deep on John Dewey's Art and Experience:

The function of criticism is the reeducation of perception of works of art; it is an auxiliary in the process, a difficult process, of learning to see and hear....The moral function of art itself is to remove prejudice, do away with the scales that keep the eye from seeing, tear away the veils due to wont and custom, perfect the power to perceive. The critic's office is to further this work, performed by the object of art.

This is one of the things I love about good literary blogs--the way in which the proprietors can interrupt their regularly scheduled programming, such as it is, to delve as deeply as they wish into whatever topic they're interested in at the moment. Maud Newton, of course, has gone deep repeatedly on Mark Twain, and Scott Esposito has been plunging his audience first into Your Face Tomorrow and now into The Tale of Genji. Very good.

There is so much I love about this, and I am very glad Kathryn Schulz is getting so much attention for her new book on how we need to change the way we think about being wrong. I grew up in a household where, let's say, my recurring wrongness about a great many things was kept at the forefront of my attention. And I grew up Roman Catholic, where the presumption of our sinful nature is a cornerstone of the entire program. And I grew up to become an editor, a field in which it's a given that creating a "perfect" text is an impossibility, and in which everything we editors (and our ilk) do to text is designed intentionally as a hedge against the inevitability of error. So this resonates with me in a very big way. To err is to be human, right? But it's all in what you make of it. To learn from your mistakes; to heed the cautionary tale--these are supposedly articles of how we educate and improve ourselves. Too many of us resist the idea that being wrong--regularly, naturally--is a basic part of our fallen condition. Hey--nobody's perfect. Start there, and then see how far you can get.

Where you'll find us this weekend--everything you need to know answered here. Come and see us at tent C, just south of Harrison on Dearborn, and come see our authors Sarah Levy, Kelly Rudnicki, and Terra Brockman during their appearances at the Good Eating tent. See you there!

Herewith: a happy day here at Agate, as for the first time in seven years--since the publication of our very first release, Sexual Healing--one of our books is reviewed in the New York Times Book Review. And what a review--as last time, a monster rave. And richly deserved, of course. The review appears as part of a "Gardening Books" round-up, in the middle of the larger piece. I hope this will convince you to buy it, if you haven't already.

From Terra's own blog, her report from the glitz and glamor of last month's Beard awards. This little post nicely captures the strengths of Terra's distinctive authorial voice--warm and deeply felt, but not without sharply etched insights. Look for her book to receive a rave review in this weekend's New York Times Book Review.

You live in a small apartment. Funds are limited, and space is even more limited. What five bottles would you pick to stock your bar? Go ahead and chip in your own ideas.