Book Buzz

• Brett Favre’s retirement is good news for the book world. The #2 and #10 books on Amazon’s bestsellers list are both Sports Illustrated tributes to the football player.

• With the news that yet another author (Margaret Seltzer) has faked her memoirs, The New York Times featured an article about the history of literary faking. Here’s my two cents: instead of lying about their memoirs, why don’t these authors release their books as fiction. Was A Million Little Pieces so poorly written that readers only liked it because they believed it was true? Couldn’t it have been a successful piece of fiction?

• I fancy myself an avid reader, but I’m constantly reminded how little I know about the literary world. The Times reviewed Antonio Skarmata’s book The Dancer and the Thief this week. Several months ago, I reviewed Skarmata’s children’s book The Composition. At the time, I never made the connection between the picture book and Ardiente paciencia, which inspired the movie Il Postino.

• The Times also featured an interesting article about Irène Nèmirovsky. I never finished Suite Française, but I need to

• A film based on Alexander McCall Smith’s The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency is now in production. I love these books and hope the movie does them justice. At least it’s being filmed in Botswana.