"Read late Amis -- maniacally alert, secular in timbre but religious in the fidelity of his observations -- and stay on your toes," writes James Parker in reference to Martin Amis's latest novel, House of Meetings, set in the deep, dark of Stalin's Russia. Amis came to Cambridge to read from the book, with our own Peter Kadzis giving the introduction.

The choice is yours, friends.

British novelist MARTIN AMIS told the Guardian that he has “a god-like relationship with the world I’ve created.” — and he is indeed a literary deity when it comes to inspiring a troop of stylistic disciples (Will Self, Zadie Smith) and traitorous critics (John Updike). In House of Meetings, he returns to life during the gulag, with Soviet Russia as his setting and two half-brothers and the woman they adore as his main players.

MR. VERTIGO

“Writing is no longer an act of free will for me, it’s a matter of survival,” says PAUL AUSTER. Known primarily for his postmodern series of experimental detective stories, The New York Trilogy, Auster gear-switches to the fable in his latest novel, Travels in the Scriptorium. Trapped in a spare room, protagonist Mr.

In between trying really hard not to nod off (whoever cranked up the heat at the Brattle, heads up -- it was hella sweaty in there), we took a general sense of great pleasure in sitting in a big room full of New Yorker dorks last night. Ah, NYer-heads are a great breed. The jolly Matthew Diffee, Drew Dernavich, Eric Lewis, and we <3 him long-time Phoenix cartoonist David Sipress were on hand to showcase the cream of their crap.

Aside from the Steve Almond/James Joyce dirty business at Great Scott that Nina will be attending (and we can't wait to hear what she thinks of Almond's recitation), here are four more options for your Wednesday. Two of them are naughty omg!

How did Tom Brady go from being a sixth-round draft pick to the Patriots’ star quarterback and one of football’s most celebrated players? Ah, the warm-fuzzy story of the underdog.

THE HOSTESS WITH THE MOSTEST

Not everybody hearts AMY SEDARIS (particularly reviewers of her latest film, Strangers with Candy), but we’ve been glued to the trajectory of her career ever since reading about her bizarre lifestyle in brother David’s essays. Amy’s first solo book project, I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence, harks back to the days when a hostess’s duties were “charmingly old-fashioned, like courtship or back-alley abortions.

At 31, Londoner BEN SCHOTT has already published three ridiculously detailed collections of notions and oddities that have sold two million copies worldwide. Now he’s moved on to the formerly antiquarian almanac; rather than predicting the year ahead, his Schott’s Almanac 2007 records the year past.

Don't be jealous!

Why. Does. She. Have. SOMUCHFUCKINGHAIR?!

STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND
We’re tearing through NELL FREUDENBERGER’s debut novel, The Dissident, at a crazy pace, pausing only to marvel at how this white, Harvard educated, ex-New Yorker editorial assistant managed to capture the voice of Yuan Zhao, a Chinese performance artist and political firecracker spending a year in Los Angeles teaching at the St.

Pink is the new Bitch

Chuck Klosterman:
We want to punch you in the Sasquatch

Oh you! Go do what the Harvard Book Store says:

I. You can throw:

1. Shiny beads
2. Dusty post-feminist texts
3. Prescription-only coke bottle glasses

II. You can go:

1. The Ultimate Indie-Yuppie is in town, and what a nasty piece of work he is: