Tweetworthy

So many stories... so little time! There’s a lot going on in the world of books and it’s quite beyond our mandate to talk about more than a bit of it. Here, however, are some of the things we’ve been microblogging about in the Twitterverse over the last few days.

• Dave Eggers has confirmed that the first McSweeney’s newspaper will come out in October. “We’re giving a lot of writers huge amounts of room to work with,” Eggers tells the San Jose Mercury News, “no word limits, trying to present a forum for enterprise journalism. I started out at newspapers and lament the shrinking news hole. If, instead of retreating, we advance and use the beauty of print, maybe that will stanch the bleeding and bring people back into the fold (and) remind the powers that be of what can happen if they give their journalists and artists more space.” (Thanks to @ConsortiumBooks.)

• Eat Me Daily offers up fall 2009’s astonishing cookbook preview. “Autumn brings more than just falling leaves and the return of legitimate root vegetables: it's also when publishing houses drop their most ambitious cookbook offerings, hoping to tap into the spirit of cooking (and book-buying) that pervades the pre-holiday season.” Hurray for the return of root vegetables! And hat tip to @JanetRudolph.

• Popmatters continues to convince with “Dylan Dog vs. Hellboy: A Study of Pulp and Pop Pastiche.” This is great stuff! “Dylan Dog and Hellboy offer fascinating examples of pastiche in storytelling. They mine similar territory for their strange and macabre tales, but twist and develop their inspirations in different directions: where Hellboy hearkens to the pulp magazines and ‘weird fiction’ of the 1920s and 1930s, Dylan Dog is practically obsessive in its allusions to films.” All of that is here.

• Zoiks! When books become a health hazard. ‘Nuff said.

• First book lovers. What is Michelle Obama reading these days? How ‘bout her old man? (Pretty terrific to once again be able to offer up a presidential reading list and have a reasonable expectation that the president in question has either read the books or plans to.)

• Regular January readers will not be surprised to learn we love The Huffington Post, but did you know that HuffPo is poised to get even better? They’ll be adding a book section next month. From The Wrap: “More than half of our traffic comes from people who are not interested in politics,” Huffington said. In the last two years, the site has launched a number of verticals, including entertainment, living and style. Next month, HuffPo will roll launch the books and technology sections next month. HuffPo Sports will follow in October.

• Ever wondered at the connection between collector comic books and crystal meth? Now you don’t have to. (Hat tip to @gtoppo.)

• Love books? Love television? The Halifax Reader very sensibly teams them up with this list.

• This has nothing, nothing, nothing to do with books, but we tweeted it anyway. I mean, seriously: camouflaged toads from National Geographic? Sweet!

• It’s possible you’ve heard about Dan Baum’s dust up with Rebecca Solnit over Baum’s (positive) Washington Post review of Solnit’s new book, A Paradise Built in Hell. I’m not going to restate it all, because the whole thing makes me queasy and more than a little confused. But here’s Baum’s side from his blog. You can find Solnit’s side somewhere else, I’m sure.

• More on the Google book deal. When and where will it end? (Not here. Not yet.)

• Bookstove opines on the Top 10 Science Fiction authors of all time.

There’s more, but that feels like enough. If you want to see everything we’re tweeting about – and perhaps even follow us, on Twitter -- January Magazine is here.