– The cocktail chart of film & literature characters. (Daisy Buchanan sure does love her mint juleps.)

– In case you missed it, the best beach reads from ArtsATL.

– Sugar Mule’s current issue, No Place Like Home, explores stories, memoir and poetry of the South Asian Diaspora, including my own story, Homeland. Check it out

– Farm lit replaces chick lit as the new “it” genre for women.

– Writers who dislike likable characters.

– In an old, but wonderful letter, Hellen Keller sets book-burning German students straight.

– Not sure I agree with this list of 15 books you should not read in your twenties. (I don’t get it…why not?)

– Apparently, creative people say “no.” (If that’s the case, I should be doing this more.)

– Challenges to staying the course in the art-committed life and a related essay on the psychic challenges for the recent MFA grad student. (With some great advice by authors.)

– Letters from Willa Cather to F. Scott Fitzgerald.

– An excerpt from a forthcoming book about carpet weavers in Afghanistan.

– Book staircase porn.

– More great tattoos inspired by books.

– E-book sales give publishers a boost.

– Loved this: 8 signs you’re a book person.

– The benefits of home libraries for children.

– 30 classic Dr. Seuss quotes that will change your life.

– The Justice Department says Apple was the ringleader in the price-fixing of e-books.

– A book on women writers and comedians on the choice not to have children.

– Loved this– 7 ways of looking at The Great Gatsby.

I leave for my second MFA residency at Queens University in Charlotte on Sunday, then I’m taking a much needed few days off. Book Banter will be back in 2 weeks. Take care.

Admittedly, I’m a bit freaked out right now. I’m not even close to being finished with my manuscript submissions for school on Sunday.

It’ll get done, right?

On with the links…

– Looking for a great beach read for the summer? In my next article for ArtsATL, I give you a list of six books I read and loved! Hope you enjoy them, too. (And if you are so inclined, please share it on FB, Twitter, etc.)

– Paying tribute to Proust.

– Happy birthday, Mrs. Dalloway!

– A lovely essay about feminist bookstores.

– In praise of the epistolary novel.

– 5 (Truly awful) original book titles. (Mules in Horses’ Harness anyone?)

– 5 Lies unpublished writers tell themselves.

– Another school district bans a book. (You’d think they’d have better things to do.)

– Remembering a Chicana author.

– Lost & Found: A poet’s journal from the start of WWII.

For those of you asking…I AM planning on bringing back Summer Writing Prompts for Kids. Maybe not EVERY day, but I hope to post prompts 2-3 times a week beginning the week after Memorial Day.

– I went to see Gatsby Friday night after reading multiple bad reviews of the movie. But I couldn’t help myself. Gatsby is Gatsby. And not only was I not disappointed, I loved it. This review describes the movie exactly how I would have. As I said to a friend at a party the other night, the movie Gatsby is as outlandish and overblown as the novel. Baz Lurhmann’s version is perfection. But I’m in the minority. Most people disagree.

– Steven Colbert and actress Carey Mulligan get schooled on Gatsby by the former host of Reading Rainbow, LeVar Burton. (PBS, please bring back Burton & Reading Rainbow.)

– When literature is lost in translation.

– Book signing in the digital age.

– A Chinese writer refuses to speak out.

– Katherine Book’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers will be made into a play.

– Going on vacation? Take these books on the airplane ride.

– Here’s the cool story behind a photo I recently posted to Facebook. (Good for them!)

– A book about thinking that has no purpose. (How is that possible?)

– A school district does the right thing with Anne Frank’s diary.

– Atlanta Writers Club member & author Jeffrey Small offers nine lessons from a sophomore novelist.

– Neil Gaiman’s 8 rules of writing. (Number 6 is my favorite.)

It’s been a week of events at the girls’ school, so I’ve largely been playing mommy, not writer. But here’s a list of links I’ve gathered over the past week on books, writing and publishing:

– So psyched that more poet laureate’s are popping up. Lucy Tapahonso has been named the Navajo Nation’s first poet laureate, and James Tyner has been named the poet laureate of Fresno, California.

– A lovely essay about Zora Neale Hurston.

– Writer Christal Presley talks about PTSD.

– What happens when you gender-flip book covers?

– New York City cab drivers produce a series of poetry.

– What happens when celebrities takeover publishing.

– How to read in the bath.

– The fascinating stories behind classic book titles.

– The meaning behind Fitzgerald’s famous line, “There are no second acts;” 20 American mansions fit for Jay Gatsby; a little about Fitzgerald’s first version of the novel; a dozen vintage ads from The New Yorker that evoke the era of Gatsby; what Fitzgerald’s estate made off the movie (not much); and not everyone likes The Great Gatsby. Here’s a so-so review of the movie (but I’m still going to see it).

– I’m dying to see Ayad Aktar’s Pulitzer Prize winning play.

– Clever doodles in school textbooks.

– Great writers offer rules for writing fiction. And here’s a comprehensive list of the timeless writing advice of great authors.

– Margaret Atwood’s technological revolution, and here’s what she dreams about.

– Reviews of books going on my reading list: A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, Flora, Allah Is Not Obliged.

– A man takes on the task of writing out the Bible by hand.

– The guilty pleasure that is the Gossip Girl novels.

– A novelist on note-taking.

– The nation’s library hangs on by a thread.

– Sick of all the Gatsby links yet? No? OK, then. This is about reading Gatsby in Beijing.

– A book about ethical fashion, in light of that horrible factory collapse in Bangladesh.

– A cartoon depicting the day-jobs of poets.

– Are your haikus out of this world? Then have NASA send it to Mars!

– A review of Jill McCorkle’s first novel in seventeen years.

– Don’t try to make a lesson out of everything you read.

– A pretty cool makeover of Shakespeare. (Thanks to Suzanne, for the tip.)

– Putting The World’s Strongest Librarian on my to-read list.

– Science fiction takes off.

– Who invented writing?

– Don’t forget…Tomorrow is free comic book day!

– Audrey Niffenegger’s new novel is an adult fairy tale.

– Family bonding at the local library.

– Poet Collin Kelley launches his new collection (which I LOVED) in Atlanta next week.

– Claire Messud eloquently tells off a Publisher’s Weekly interviewer for asking a stupid question. The full interview is here.

– Dr. Jane Aronson writes about adopting across continents.

– Digitization and the Oxford English dictionary.

– Itsy, bitsy, teeny, weeny libraries.

– A gorgeous essay on one of my favorite cities in the world.

– Another interview with James Salter.

– Literary pets. (Heminway liked his cats.)

– Will Amazon ever extend its reach to the Arab world?

– The only surviving recording of Virginia Woolf’s voice.

– Margaret Atwood weighs in on sexism and Wikipedia.

– Is the play-by-play book review on its way to extinction?

– A very cool book place…The Stockholm Public Library.

– Fourteen hundred stolen rare books returned to London library!

– The handwritten manuscripts of your favorite writers.

– Why F. Scott Fitzgerald is greater than the Gatsby he created. (And why The Great Gatsby endures after all these years.)

Skipping just one day of Book Banter has set me back quite a bit. I’m either going to need to keep up with it every weekday, or just list fewer links!

– A two-year old judges books by their covers.

– Hilarious new categories describing used books on Amazon.

– 25 vintage photos of librarians doing their thing.

– Wikipedia’s novelist problem gets worse.

– The truth about digital publishing that traditional publishers don’t want to hear.

– Steven Soderbergh writes a novella on Twitter.

– F. Scott Fitzgerald’s handwritten financial ledgers.

– What makes a happy writing community.

– A cartoon tribute to cats and the poets who loved them.

– Cool literary magazine covers.

– What is the future of super-sized bookstores?

– Editors’ reading recommendations. (LOVE Drinking Coffee Elsewhere)

– An interview with Israeli Arab author Sayed Kashua.

– The NYT Review changes editors, and ignites controversy.

– Still writing racy novels at 105 years old!

– How The Life of Pi symbolizes the post 9/11 era.

– Kurt Vonnegut’s letters.

– The collection at the Guantanamo library prison.

– Writing coach William Zinsser, is a good listener.

– Who was Typhoid Mary? An intriguing new novel about her life, and the disease she spread.

– Jason Segal writes a kids’ book.

– An interview with Bangladeshi poet (and friend) Dilruba Ahmed.

– Writers in love with other art forms.

– The sudden death of a great feminist writer.

– Iranian sketches of human rights.

– What kinds of values should children learn from books?

– It’s not too late to celebrate National Poetry Month.

– The diaries of Susan Sontag. (She loved lists.)

– The diary of a Hitler diary hoax.

– Why we love young adult fiction.

– 20 amazing outdoor libraries and bookstores from around the world.

– Your favorite authors’ favorite musicians.

– A review of Claire Messud’s new novel.

– James Patterson pleads for a book bailout.

– Will reading ever be the same if we no longer have printed books?

– Why presidential libraries are huge failures.

– The cultural myth of what writers earn.

– A book about a man who tries to raise his own wife. (And people think arranged marriages are weird?)

– The awkward relationship between the Library of Congress and e-books.

– A review of Mira Nair’s film adaptation of the book, The Reluctant Fundamentalist.

– For you caffeine-drinkers, a book about the history of coffee.

– This NPR’s best selling books this week.

That’s a wrap. Have a good weekend!