Wednesday Linkstorm

Yesterday was Anton Chekhov's birthday. Best Chekhov story on three. One, two, three... (Did you shout The Kiss? I shouted The Kiss. Great, we're in agreement. It's The Kiss.) Here is Raymond Carter's story, Errand, about Chekhov's death.* That moment with the cork!*If you don't have a New Yorker login by this point I give up on you.A Times slide show of 2012's best book jacket designs. Dig the Ben Marcus cover, and that Bronte business is almost making me want to crack Jane Eyre (Not. What is this, Mrs. Harms' ninth grade English class?), but I'm giving it to Watergate.Yesterday was the 167th anniversary of "The Raven" being published. Quoth the rave: "Cool, I guess?"It seems a new run of Finnegan's Wake has sold out in China. Okay, sure, why not? China's crazy. I was there recently and made the following notes in the Shanghai airport:-filled with smoke-man zipping up pants peering out of janitorial closet-teenagers eating slices of white bread (?)-coffee US$12So, yeah, why wouldn't Finnegan's Wake fit in with all that?Barnes & Noble is shrinking, you guys. In the next ten years, they're whittling their locations down to 450. This is bad for the publishing industry of course, but the real victim is your list of clean(ish) public bathrooms in New York City.A tough but fair review from Full Stop of Both Flesh and Not, that new posthumous DFW book that's mostly B-sides and rarities.A really crummy looking Salinger biography is in the works, written by these two phonies.The most important book news you'll read all day. Kidding, that's a link to the Puppy Bowl IX line-up. Chesnut for the win, obviously.