It’s last call in the Hamptons, so publishing is heading out the door for a long weekend, chucking some novel written by a guy on the cover of Time as they exit.

So, in the interest of making sure that I’m putting something up on this blog, I give to you this bit from io9, which lists Fantastic Scifi Graphic Novels (That Will Hook You For Life).

It’s a really good list, without any of the obvious contenders (Dark Knight Returns, Maus, and Sandman, I’m looking in your direction). I’m especially happy that both Charles Burns’ Black Hole, and Paul Pope’s Heavy Liquid (below) made the list.

I’m also really happy that somebody in the comments made a case for the Vertigo Crime graphic novels. Each is a stand-alone story, featuring writers from within the comics realm (BrianAzzarello) and without (Ian Rankin and Peter Straub). The ones I’ve read so far range from really good to awesome.

Azzarello

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After springing news of the J.D. Salinger toilet on eBay, Jacket Copy has dug deeper into the online auction company to find their 12 Favorite Non-Book Literary Items on eBay.

I can’t decide whether I want to go for the Jack Kerouac alarm clock or the Gertrude Stein stein (below).

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McNally Jackson has posted their FAQs regarding Jonathan Franzen’s new novel Freedom (FSG HC 9780374158460 $28.00)

Bottom line: you still have to wait until Tuesday September 31st to buy the darn thing.

Also, if you want to have a good laugh, you should check out the Twitter feed from Emperor Franzen (below)

(via Shelf Awareness)

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Netflix just released an iPhone app that allows users to stream movies over their phone. Just pick the movie, click the screen, and away you go (assuming that you have a a strong signal over AT&T’s 3G network).

Usually, I like to read a book while I’m in situations where I have short distractions, like waiting in line at the post office, or waiting for a movie (in a theater) to start. It seems almost perverse that I can just fire up Fast Times At Ridgemont High, or season one of The Rockford Files anytime and nearly anyplace I want to.

GalleyCat used this occasion to list the Best Netflix Streaming Movies for Readers: Dramas Based on Contemporary Literature. It’s a swanky list that includes adaptations of Philip K. Dick’s A Scanner Darkly, Omega Man (based on Richard Mathison’s novella I Am Legend), and Stand By Me (based on the Stephen King short story The Body).

The list itself is culled from dozens of movies that Netflix has listed under that rubric.

One obvious choice that I can’t believed they missed was the Swedish adaptation of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. I guess they figured that nobody would want to strain their eyes trying to read the subtitles on such a tiny screen.

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AMC, the basic cable channel that brought us Mad Men, will tackle Robert Kirkman’s zombie comic The Walking Dead (published by Image Comics), turning it into a live-action series.

Yes, I am tired of all the zombie mash-ups, but this is a good old-fashioned hordes of undead trying to turn the survivors into Meow Mix.

Appropriate, the series will premiere on Halloween, which I guess will become National Speak Like a Zombie Day.

Fortunately, there’s enough time to stock up on the twelve volumes (so far) of Walking Dead graphic novels. They’re already selling like hotcakes, so it’s not hard to imagine their sales skyrocketing once these zombies star to strut their stuff.

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io9 has posted a feature listing what they call All the Books You’ll Be Lusting For This Fall Season.

Since they are a SF/Fantasy blog, the books tend to gravitate towards those genres, and wow what a list.

When you come across these titles in catalogs, they are usually buried in amongst cookbooks and books telling you how to feel good about yourself while losing twenty-pounds and making a million dollars.

But, laid out end to end in a veritable smorgasbord…let’s just say that my eyes are bigger than my brain, or my available leisure time.

While I was expecting to see new books by Scott Westerfield and William Gibson, I’m so glad that they gave a shout-out to a (slightly) lesser known writer. In this case, Richard Kadrey. He wrote a novel that went under a lot of readers’ radars called Sandman Slim, which was a great book to handsell once you laid out the plot. His new one is a sequel called Kill the Dead, and I can’t wait to read it.

Time to switch into mooch-mode and call my Harper rep.

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Marketing guru (and author of books such as Purple Cow and the recent Linchpin) Seth Godin has announced that he is ditching traditional publishing after successfully publishing 12 bestselling titles.

According an upcoming interview with Mediabistro, he says “I like the people, but I can’t abide the long wait, the filters, the big push at launch, the nudging to get people to go to a store they don’t usually visit to buy something they don’t usually buy, to get them to pay for an idea in a form that’s hard to spread”.

It’s hard to argue with him on this front, especially since he’s the kind of author who has bestsellers even after giving away the contents for free online. He writes the type of books that are quick to read, but somehow manage to resonate for a long time afterwaradsf; basically hit-and-run jobs on the business brain.

Still, it would be nice to think that if the market still exists for his books in the traditional paper and ink format (and it’s hard to believe that there isn’t), that he might license the content via print-on-demand.

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I thought I had written about this before, but I can’t find a record of it-this will teach me to do a better job of tagging posts.

Anyway, the Wall Street Journal ran an article by Ron Adner and William Vincent, telling us to get ready for ads in books.

I haven’t read the article, since you have to pay, and I don’t really want to subscribe. But Galley Cat has a nice summary.

Basically, my thoughts are as follows:

A) It wasn’t that long ago that mass market paperbacks almost always had ads in the center, usually advertising other books, or a tear-away coupon to send away for a catalog of titles. I don’t remember being freaked out by them.

B) Fay Weldon was paid by Bulgari to be featured in her book The Bulgari Connection. Soon, other writers were accepting paid product placement in their novels and short stories. Even Stephen King was paid by Amazon to write a story featuring a Kindle. Which is worse: an overt ad, or the author taking the money and promoting products in a more covert fashion?

C) While I’m not copacetic with the idea of adverts for cars or malt liquor in new releases, I could live with them if it brought down the cost of ownership. But, since these previous excursions into subsidized literature did nothing to lower the cover prices of these books, I don’t hold out much hope for the future.

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