• Clay Shirky and Cory Doctorow, two smart guys whose books I like, have offered some thoughts on the future of bookselling.  I had planned a lengthy response to these articles, but to be honest, I don’t see the point.  I will summarize both by saying that they have great ideas for new stores.  If I were opening a bookstore today, I’d take a hard look at whether a non-profit model made sense, as Shirky suggests.  I’d also focus on the areas where the net can’t compete — making a great browsing experience, carrying as many limited edition, object d’arte that I could, having a kick-ass coffee shop/wine bar, etc.  But to take a store that’s already in existence and move to those kind of models is extremely difficult.  Ask the folks at Shaman Drum how easy it is to switch to a non-profit model after years of operating as a for-profit business.  In the end, discussions like this are important, as they’re bound to inspire some innovation, but they need to be fully grounded in reality to be useful.

• The Millions has begun its Year in Reading series for 2009.   As I said last year, The Millions does this year-end business better than everyone else because the focus is on reading — the best book you read in 2009 — rather than publishing.  Jonathan Lethem, Julie Klam, Mark Sarvas and others have already been posted.  Mine is forthcoming, so stay tuned for that.

• The New York Times 10 Best of 2009 is out.  Topping the fiction list, alongside books by heavyweights Lorrie Moore and Jonathan Lethem, is Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It, by Maile Meloy.

• Finally, those in Los Angeles will want to check out Interviewing the Audience with Zach Helm, running this weekend at Bootleg Theatre.  “Interviewing The Audience is an opportunity to expand the perception of theater and narrative with a simple, human approach. Specifically, members of each evening’s audience will be asked to sit with Mr. Helm and allow themselves to be interviewed without any pre-conception or structure. The result is a series of stories so personal, so real, so emotionally deep, so strange that they often surpass our expectations more than any typical piece. Mr. Helm saw the late Spaulding Gray perform the piece in Chicago and became immediately enamored with it. After a 5 night successful run in 2007, Teatro de Facto & Bootleg are bringing it back for a 2 Night Limited Engagement.“  The show is this Friday and Saturday night.  Tickets are $15 online and $20 at the door.

On to the news:

• Keith Gessen and Tom Scocca got into it over Mark Greif’s most recent essay in n+1.  The essay concerns gay marriage and abortion, and it is now online, so you can read it for yourself.  Scocca wrote a snarky critique of the piece, part of a series of snarky critiques he’s written (previous targets include the New Yorker, for its decision to run a Dave Eggers piece with promotional stills from the upcoming Where the Wild Things Are movie (if you haven’t already read Scocca’s take on it, you ought to)), and Gessen took issue with it.  And it took off from there.  I haven’t read the Greif piece yet, though I’ve read much of the rest of the current n+1 (highly recommend Marco Roth’s take on “the neuronovel”).  I think what’s happening here is that you have a magazine in n+1 that aims to be very serious about things.  It really doesn’t have much of a sense of humor (which isn’t to say that the people who write for it aren’t sometimes funny).  And then on the other side you have The Awl, which seems, at times, to not want to admit to being very smart (even though they are).  And I think Gessen rightfully called them on that, though maybe not in the best way possible.  The Awl does an interesting balancing act that not a lot of sites can pull off.  It runs great, fairly serious pieces like these alongside a running stream of fluffy comedy posts.  Both have a lot of value, though, as l’affaire Greif shows, the humorous stuff can have a devaluing effect on the serious work.  In this case, they had real objections to a controversial essay, but when they expressed them, they took extra pains to attack the magazine for being pretentious, somewhat diluting their argument, at least in my opinion.  What do you think?  (And please refrain from “ZOMG! Keith Gessen is pretentious!  LOOK WHAT HE NAMED HIS NOVEL!!1!1.  Did you read said novel?  If not, what are you doing talking about it?  If so, what did you think of it?  I particularly enjoyed the opening.  Probably one of my favorite first chapters, though I felt the book didn’t maintain that kind of brilliant prose throughout.  Still, a book I enjoyed.)  [Edit:  Nerdshares sums it all up.  Please read her excellent and measured comments on this whole mess.]

• At the Huffington Post, whose book page, busy though it may be, continues to churn out interesting essays, David Finkle writes about vook and other hybrid book-video products.  In short, he’s not that into them.  I think there are going to be creations like these book-video things and that eventually, but I think we’ll know we’ve found something great when we’re no longer calling them books or referencing what we think of as a book in any way.  Right now, we’re still in that chocolate and peanut butter phase:  “Two great tastes that taste great together!”  Except they don’t always taste so great together, so I guess it’s more like chocolate and sardines.

• Much ado about Jonathan Lethem’s new novel Chronic City.  At The Second Pass, John Williams is torn as to whether or not to read the book, in part because of the scathing review Michiko Kakutani gave the book in the New York Times.  But as Garth Risk Halberg points out, that review might be a touch disingenuous to begin with.  So there’s that.  I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but I have to give Lethem and the folks at Random House credit for coming up with a cool tour idea.  Lethem and others will read every word of his new book at different locations around New York City, including his home turf bookstore of Book Court as well as indie McNally Jackson.

• For a little levity, do check out this AV Club interview with Jeff Tweedy, in which he reacts to various things that have been said about him on the Internet.  Topics covered:  Tweedy’s hair, his shoes, his status as a “musical genius,” and whether he is, in fact, pretentious.  I think I’d like to do the same thing, but with Keith Gessen.  (via Largehearted Boy)

I had the pleasure of writing about the #17 book on the list, Jonathan Lethem’s The Fortress of Solitude, a book about which I have mixed feelings.  Click through to read my post.