California Literary Review

Baltimore Has Poe; Philadelphia Wants Him: But the ghoulish argument between the cities over the body and legacy of the master of the macabre has continued in blogs and newspapers, and on Jan. 13 Mr. Pettit is to square off with an opponent from Baltimore to settle the matter in a debate at the Philadelphia Free Library. [NYT]

Publisher moving on from O.J. to Muhammad: The publisher that took on O.J. Simpson’s “If I Did It” after it was dropped in the face of public outrage has signed up another rejected project: Sherry Jones’ “The Jewel of Medina,” a novel about a wife of the prophet Muhammad that Random House canceled out of concern that it would anger Muslims. [San Francisco Chronicle]

Esther Woolfson’s top 10 birds in fact and fiction: The prize-winning nature writer lists her favourite instances of birds in literature across the ages. [Guardian]

Concerns Beyond Just Where the Wild Things Are: Maurice Sendak’s 80th year — which ended with his birthday earlier this summer and is being celebrated on Monday night with a benefit at the 92nd Street Y — was a tough one. He has been gripped by grief since the death of his longtime partner; a recent triple-bypass has temporarily left him too weak to work or take long walks with his dog; and he is plagued by Norman Rockwell. [NYT]

The Nazi novelist you should read: Isaac Bashevis Singer famously called Norwegian writer Knut Hamsun the father of modern literature. I’d take this further and say that he’s the father of postmodern literature as well. With 1890’s Hunger, Hamsun unleashed the first in a series of novels that anticipated everything from the terrifying absurdities of Kafka to the desiccated ennui of the existentialists and even Charles Bukowski’s autobiographical explorations. [Guardian]