This week: writers say the darndest things, Americans buy the darndest books, and also some zombies.

Mark Twain on Jane Austen:

I haven’t any right to criticise books, and I don’t do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticise Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can’t conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Everytime I read Pride and Prejudice I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone.

Hilary Mantel says she will spend her Booker prize money on “sex, drugs & rock and roll.” Well played, Mantel. Well played.

An anti-prostitution group has delayed the film adaptation of Gabriel García Márquez’s Memories of My Melancholy Whores because they say it promotes prostitution.

Is there room for lit journals anymore? My (unfounded, hopeful) answer: yes.

Recently in the Twitter-lit-osphere: a Twitter-inspired short film wins an award, and Neil Gaiman rallies his followers to write a book with him.

Hopscotch is so passe: this man chalks poetry on the sidewalk. I think there should be more of this.

It’s been years since I studied French so I can’t actually understand much of the text, but all I know is that this blog features a lot of photos of zombie attack supplies. Zombie attacks!

Speaking of horror: though he died 160 years ago, Edgar Allen Poe received a funeral this week that would have made the master of macabre proud.

The upcoming Harvard Lampoon will feature a Twilight parody called “Nightlight.” One might think Twilight parodies are getting tired at this point, but them Harvarders (Harvardites?) will prove you wrong. A sampling:

He stared intently at the screen, narrowing his eyes into slits and concentrating those slits on the screen as if the only thing that mattered to him was physically dominating that screen. He was muscular, like a man who could pin you up against the wall as easily as a poster, yet lean, like a man who would rather cradle you in his arms. He had reddish, blonde-brown hair that was groomed heterosexually. He looked older than the other boys in the room—maybe not as old as God or my father, but certainly a viable replacement. Imagine if you took every woman’s idea of a hot guy and averaged it out into one man. This was that man.

Britons buy more books in total than Americans, but less mysteries or romance novels. So, uh, what does that say about our country? Yee-haw!

And now, your pick-me-up.

David Bowie 'n Kitten