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.

Cary Tennis's Salon advice column, Since You Asked, is going to be turned into a book. And he wants readers to vote on the best ones (Site Pass required to view the full piece).

But he hasn't signed with Simon Spotlight or Random Hizzle, oh no. Cary's putting out this little baby all by himself because, when he tried dealing with the industry hobgoblins, things just got "weird and twisted."

And Word Up is pleased to hear that she cut her teeth in book publishing. A certain Emily Gould is taking over the co-editor spot Jessica Coen vacated when she jumped ship to Conde Nast's Vanity Fair. Gould had been writing the new and previously anonymous Unsolicited column, which we heart to the max for shaking a middle finger at the stupid bobble-heads who run the industry.

If you know JULIA SWEENEY only from her Saturday Night Live running one-joke androgynous character sketch “Pat,” or her incredible This American Life contribution, this is your chance to catch up. Sweeney’s one-woman show God Said, Ha! — about how she and her brother Michael were diagnosed with cancer within months of each other (Michael did not survive) — won critical raves for its mix of humor and pathos and was turned into a film by Quentin Tarantino and a Grammy-winning CD.

The Guardian's Michelle Pauli (aka TeaAndOranges Snookums) reports:

"The first time I meet Penguin's digital publisher, Jeremy Ettinghausen, I crash land at his feet. Admirably unperturbed, he shows me his house, we have a chat about Penguin's latest digital initiative, then fly to a library before he teleports me into the future."

Given that sequels have become almost more common than originals, it’s no wonder that MICHAEL TOLKIN is attempting to get back in the game with a decade-late follow-up to his satire The Player. In The Return of the Player, old Griffin Mill is down to his last $6 million. He’s also got erectile dysfunction and the hots for his ex-wife, and he’s paralyzed by his fear that the world will end before he can escape to his very own private island.

Right. First things first, here's your readings option for tomorrow:

Mrs. Dracula

ELIZABETH KOSTOVA was so obsessed with Dracula, she spent a decade researching the legend, originally inspired by “pleasantly creepy” tales her father told her about the vampire when she was a girl. Ten years later, the first-time novelist cashed into a publishing jackpot — a $2 million advance for The Historian, seven-figure rights to the film, dozens of rave reviews, and a #1 slot on bestseller lists.

2 gauge plugs? You can do better than that, Stephen Elliott.

The perfect reading material to Yo La Tango’s new album, I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass could be none other than STEPHEN ELLIOTT’s latest, aptly titled My Girlfriend Comes to the City and Beats Me Up. The episodic novel of 11 linked stories follows Theo, who goes from a group home for troubled teens in Chicago to finding literary success in San Francisco.

ALICE MCDERMOTT is a rare writer, the sort who keeps her work focused on one type of person (Irish Catholics) in one setting (Long Island), and never tell the same story twice. Her latest, After This, is a Vietnam novel full of the political and social chaos of the ’60s and ’70s as well as the tumultuous inner turmoil surrounding the six members of the Keane family.

Distracted no doubt by the Foley sandal and imminent Armageddon, candidates for Congress have not yet taken up their traditional principled stand against Hollywood indecency as a ploy for cheap votes. Fortunately, the cause has found unlikely supporters -- theater owners and exhibitors.

For example, the righteous folk in Hoopeston, Illinois can breathe a sigh of relief now that Greg Boardman, owner of the town’s only two theaters, had them shut down for two weeks rather than show “Jackass Number Two” or other Hollywood “drivel.

The mysterious K. Bonami got caught in a mosh last night at the Wolf Eyes show. Luckily, the camera was rolling. Holy fuck: we haven't seen ultraviolence like this since the Misfits at the Channel in '83 (on video: we aren't that old). Fave part is where they go "Whaaaaa!" and then they go "AIIIIIIGH!" and the thingee goes "GSGVHGHSHASDZZZZRR!" and the kids all pump their fists like it's a Dropkick Murphys chorus.

A long time ago, when we were temping in an office that reduced us to a trained data-entry monkey, the only way we could halt the onset of a mental breakdown was to stream archived episodes of NPR’s This American Life off the internerd. It was in this way that we discovered the delightfully snarky DAVID RAKOFF, who not only dresses better than like-minded contemporary David Sedaris but often delivers the acidic wit with 10 times the panache.