The third punch line to that joke, until yesterday, was that no such presidential library even existed. The recently-unveiled plans for the George W. Bush Presidential Center (pictured) at Southern Methodist University in Dallas show that there will probably be at least twice that number of books in the 225,000-square-foot building, and that it will never burn down no matter how many drunken SMU frat boys attempt to light their farts next to it, because it's basically a red brick fortress.

• The god Pan looking on from a distance with his spying, lascivious gaze.

The rest of the shortlist:

Paul Theroux, A Dead Hand
Nick Cave, The Death of Bunny Munro
Philip Roth, The Humbling
Jonathan Littell, The Kindly Ones
Amos Oz, Rhyming Life and Death
John Banville, The Infinities
Anthony Quinn, The Rescue Man
Simon Van Booy, Love Begins in Winter
Sanjida O'Connell, The Naked Name of Love
Richard Milward, Ten Storey Love Song

Some hot girl-on-girl action with Philip Roth, after the jump...

Over his five years as editor of the Review, Gourevitch was the late George Plimpton's spiritual if not immediate successor (everyone seems to be leapfrogging the brief Brigid Hughes reign; the first editor following Plimpton's death was rather quickly dropped, on account of the then-30-year-old was running the Review like it was, well, a lit mag, and not a black-tie literary institution. She now runs the lit mag A Public Space, which is basically the Paris Review for Brooklyn, and with fewer full-time employees). The handsome lit mag is distinguished for its canonical interview series and, under Gourevitch, an increasingly global eye: photojournalism, travel writing and reportage to go alongside stories from, more and more, foreign authors and lesser-known Americans.

Anyway, whoever succeeds Gourevitch—I'm assuming they're hiring from outside rather than inside—should probably be a renowned writer in his or her own right, and well-connected in the American and European literary community; but also someone with experience in the world, through writing (as a critic, reader and editor) and as a traveler and/or reporter, with a wide-angle view of world politics and literature. Someone of both life and letters, basically.

The first name that comes to mind is Aleksandar Hemon, for some reason. Thoughts?

The editors' favorites will be published in icon's February 2010 issue, and the grand champ (chosen we're-not-sure-how) gets a free one-year subscription and a copy of Thomas Pynchon's Inherent Vice. So start writing! (But take your time because, you know, it's just 100 words, how hard could it be?)

• Where'd you get the money for that motorcycle?

Well, if you want to call Stephen King “literature”.

As luck would have it, this happy news coincides (more or less) with New York City's First Independent Bookstore Week, which runs November 15 to 21. There are events at indie bookstores all over the city (click here for a schedule), but even before the festivities begin another Dumbo bookshop, powerHouse Arena, is hosting the opening party tomorrow with live music, food and drink, a raffle and an impressive slate of speakers including authors Kurt Andersen, Michael Greenberg and Jennifer Egan, and Macmillan CEO John Sargent. Click here for details and RSVP info.

Which brings us to this grumpy-ass piece at Guernica by Honduran-in-exile writer Horacio Castellanos Moya. Moya's upset that North Americans occasionally drop lit-star Roberto Bolaño's name, and thinks, grumpily, that:

...the construction of the Bolaño myth was not only a publisher’s marketing operation but also a redefinition of the image of Latin American culture and literature that the North American cultural establishment is now selling to the public.

I am wary of any argument that cites a "North American cultural establishment" acting with the sort of predatory agency that's implied here. But let's, for a moment, concede that the NACE [pronounced Nah-tsee] supreme council came up with a unified plan to profit from a densely challenging 670-page work of metafiction-in-translation by a charismatic/dead Mexican-Chilean. Yes, let's.

So, in the L Magazine/Listicle tradition, we've assembled a few other songs inspired by books—some are obvious, some are not, but most should be locked away forever, and never listened to again...

The poem was originally printed in the lit mag jubilat, and in fact is online there now. Go, read it, and then come back.

Now, if you are like me, you probably took a minute to appreciate the piece, but mostly tried to figure out which movie each line describes. Some of them are comically straightforward descriptions of classics; there's some straight-to-cable dreck, soon-to-be-forgotten recent releases, and neglected late-show classics. So, as a public service, we have provided an answer key for you, after the jump. (In the interests of full disclosure, I correctly guessed 10 of the movies. You?)

Still, if you ever wondered how to make Coolio's Fork Steak (a chunk of beef so tender, he claimed you could cut it with a fork), or his Westside Tilapia, a new book will make the whole process much clearer. Cookin' With Coolio: 5 Star Meals at a 1 Star Price by "Coolio the Ghetto Gourmet" hits bookshelves on November 17 and will feature those recipes and more, as well as additional content, like a chapter entitled "How to Become a Kitchen Pimp" and another devoted to cooking "Pasta Like a Rasta," which is something I've been attempting for years with only limited success.

The two worked together once before on the music video for "Heard 'em Say", and of course Kanye is quickly stacking up a sizable bibliography, including his book of quotables Thank You and You're Welcome and the volume of photographs of the pop star, Glow in the Dark. Through the Wire: Lyrics and Illuminations hits shelves on November 10 from Atria. For his next book project, maybe Kanye can get Takashi Murakami to animate an anime series about his exploits called "The Good Life." (NOTCOT)

There is a launch, tomorrow, with a kid-lit reading in the morning, and a reading and free champagne toast in the evening. And then, presumably, they'll keep funneling more and more alcohol down your gullet until you can't help but buy everything you see, and the evening descends into a free-for-all, well-dressed young parents clawing at each other for the last copies of The Elegance of the Hedgehog, chaos reigns.

Mead discusses the evolution of Sweet Valley High into Gossip Girl—"'We thought consumer were more sophisticated... They wanted their book to feel like Mom's book... with a cover that looked like it didn't have to come from the kids' section... and it wasn't embarrassing to be seen with,'" says Alloy's President—but one thing Mead doesn't go into is the ever-increasing adult readership for Y.A. literature. But looking at the Gossip Girl TV show's target audience, the subway ubiquity of Twilight and Harry Potter, et cetera, had me thinking again about Where the Wild Things Are—"There is no difference between childhood and adulthood" being an operating principle for this film that cozies up to the sensibilities and sensitivities of twentysomethings making less than a wholehearted commitment to adulthood.

"'We have wacky mode,” Powell remembers Barthelme saying to his class, a writing workshop Powell was taking. “What must wacky mode do?” The students, clueless, stayed quiet. Barthelme said, “Break their hearts."

In this, Wacky Mode serves a similar function to a strange object covered with fur.

(Incidentally, Powell's new book is The Interrogative Mood: A Novel?, 165 pages of which every sentence is a question ("Should it still be Constatinople?" "Why won't the aliens step forth to help us?" "Do you dance?"). We'll have a [glowing] review in an upcoming issue of the L, but in the meantime, he reads tonight at 192 Books. Will he point to a different a different audience member after every question?)

It's touching that Shelley Duvall used to call Altman "Pirate", and weedy, boozy testimonials from coconspirators Tim Robbins and Michael Murphy are fun but hardly surprising (neither are their unpleasant, ugly flipsides); and Altman's alluded-to affair with Faye Dunaway has apparently been a matter of public record since at least 1989—though if this comes as news to you, as it did to me, you're going to want to take a minute to really fully consider the implications here, because seriously, what?—so in looking for something new to post here we turn to Dana Stevens, at Slate, who has already taken the trouble of typing up the section of the book in which Robert Altman tattoos Harry Truman's dog.

Enter Jonathan Lethem, who, god love him, has found a way to read fiction for the people while simultaneously indulging his ego. Starting on Friday (at the New Yorker Festival no less) Lethem will begin to read from his new novel, Chronic City, and will continue to read it, from start to finish, over eight nights and seven NYC venues, until he has read the whole damn thing. The little tour will culminate at BookCourt, in an evening offering "prizes and absurdities," for your trouble, whatever that means. Anyway, I'm just glad I won't have to buy the book now, 'cause I'm poor.

Filmed and edited by Emmanuel Cruz.

Jerome Chou, one of about a dozen Branch organizers, was interviewed for the Times’s The Local and on Clinton Hill Blog last month to talk about the fundraiser that was held at Melville House in DUMBO on September 16. The group collected money that night to fund its operations through the end of the season and collected books from its wish list to add to its stacks.

Still, even in the European literary community, this appears to be the most surprising Nobel since, well, at least Elfride Jelinek. (Maybe even Wislawa Szymborska!) In her own own official statement Ms. Müller's confesses, "I am very surprised and still cannot believe it... I can't say anything more at the moment." (Not exactly Doris Lessing's "Oh Christ! I couldn't care less," is it?)

So, who is Herta Müller?

Tao Lin at Copperfield's Books from Melville House on Vimeo.

Split between two rooms, the larger space features new works by visual artists who create installations and special volumes around a common theme (currently, science in art), while the adjacent room serves as a bookstore for artists' books and prints. The Art Newspaper covered the opening event, and the gallery's website has details on the current exhibition and books on display.

(photo credit: nicknormal/Flickr)