I got an email a while back from The Millions asking me to nominate my top 5 books for the new millennium, with the following constraints: they must be fiction, they must be available in English. The idea was, The Millions would then tabulate all votes and come up with a top 20.

So. If some of the most interesting writing I’ve read has been in a blog, or a pdf, or a webcomic, or just in emails, I can’t mention it – it has to be writing that been legitimised by a book deal. Also, if I’ve read someone brilliant in a language other than English – someone who hasn’t happened to sell English-language rights – I can’t mention that either. So I can’t use this to give interesting writers a better chance of attracting notice and getting an English-language book deal, I just have to endorse the status quo.

I’m pulling this out for a couple of reasons. Firstly, Helen DeWitt writes an excellent blog, Paperpools, and if you didn’t know it existed, well, I simply couldn’t live with that. So go read it, please.  Secondly, I think the first sentence of this quote is somewhat arresting.  No doubt a few of you scoffed when you read it.  The best writing of the decade in an email?  A web comic? A blog? This gets at something I’ve been thinking about for a while:  books are great, but they make up a small percentage of what we read.  Not only that, but the slice of the pie seems to shrink a bit more each year.  We’re reading just as much as ever (and probably writing more, too), but it’s not always a book.  This is something I discussed recently with Bob Stein from the Institute for the Future of the Book.  Are we at a moment when the mark of intellectual achievement might be moving toward some new form?  Something to think about over the weekend.

[Hopping in to edit this post a bit:  This is not a "books are doomed" post.  I think books have a robust future.  This is really more about whether we're undervaluing writing that happens online or in a non-traditional environment.  Just wanted to avoid undue confusion.  More thoughts on this to come.]

Buy DeWitt’s novel The Last Samurai from Vroman’s.

• Am I the only one who doesn’t follow any famous people on Twitter?  Now, if Shaquile O’Neal talked about bookselling and book covers all day long, then maybe he’d be worth a follow.  Anwyay, here’s the LA Times list of 25 Must Follows.  Harper Studio has one that’s more in line with my sensibilities.

• The Skylight blog is blowing up in a big way lately, with a sexy new design, some great content-y posts, and, um, a display about Chuck Taylors.  What’s not to love?

• I have a lot of trouble figuring out exactly what The Rumpus is (apparently it’s “the literary equivalent of stolen wi-fi.”  Oh, okay) , but I love this essay by Adam Kaufman about 2666 and “The Wire” (Shocking, I know):  “To put it simply, Juárez is an example of Mexico’s rise to a place from where Baltimore and many other formerly great American cities have fallen. The normal citizens who move up within this new North American power spectrum are in as great of a danger as those who fall to the bottom.“They were convinced the city was growing by the second. On the far edge of Santa Teresa, they saw flocks of black vultures…Where there were vultures, they noted, there were no other birds.” (129) “They don’t fly away because their wings are clipped.” (Season 2, Episode 8 )”  In other news, 2666 was knocked out of the Tournament of Books today.  We’ll see if it returns in Zombie round action.

• The Millions has followed up its Islands in the Stream post about indie bookstores in NYC with a walking tour of independent bookstores.  The tour is scheduled for May 2 at 11 a.m.  Click through for complete details.

• By now you may have heard about the contentious panel on the future of publishing at SXSWi (The i stands for interactive).  Here is an excellent post recapping what happened by Peter Miller, a publicity director at Penguin and owner of Freebird Bookstore in Brooklyn (It’s on the walking tour, for those interested).  Be sure to read the comments to get a well-rounded look at the panel.  Of special note are the excellent comments from Kassia Kroszier and Richard Nash.  Read the Twitter feed about it, too (#sxswbp).

• And finally, since it’s probably off most of your radars by now, I’ll point out that the novelist Helen DeWitt (The Last Samurai) has left an insightful comment on my post I Read an E-Book (And I Liked It).  Click through to the comments and check out what she has to say.  I echo pretty much all of those sentiments.