A few more of my Fitzgerald set have been arriving this week, only a couple more due in and then I’ve completed my whole set and sense of fulfillment and happiness will surely follow.

• The Crack-Up by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• The Lost Decade by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• The Pat Hobby Stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald

And, a whole bunch of links of good reading for you all.

• Did you know that there is no historical marker in the house in Fayetteville, North Carolina, where Carson McCullers wrote The Heart is a Lonely Hunter?
• A look at Mad Men‘s Don Draper’s bookshelf.
• On the Meaning of Making Time to Read by Nymeth from Things Mean A Lot.
• A visit to Carson McCullers’ childhood home in Columbus.
• On books and reading – how the very act of reading must be considered before we can adequately engage in a discussion of “the future of fiction”; some interesting thoughts on the agency of reading as well.
• Chuck Palahniuk on reading Judy Blume and his latest novel Tell-All.
• The 1996 Details profile of David Foster Wallace; that the author of the article couldn’t easily access the profile online speaks volumes about how far digitization still has to go.
• Truth: I was that creepy kid at high school that spent lunchtimes in the library reading true crime. Here’s a short list of the best true crime books.
• This isn’t book related at all, but it’s pretty cool nonetheless. Phillipe Halsman was a photographer in the 1950s and would ask his subjects to “jump” for a photo.
• I’m almost finished with my last Nathanael West novel, and The New York Times published a review of a new biography of him and his wife, Lonelyhearts: The Screwball World of Nathanael West and Eileen McKenney by Marion Meade.
• Ben Myers is releasing a fictional account of the life of missing pop lyricist Richey Edwards – a profound influence on my teenage self – in October, Richard: A Novel. The cover looks good, but the blurb seems a bit underwhelming, I mean:  “one man’s battle with his worst enemy. Himself.” Hopefully that’s just publishing copy and  in no way reflects the quality of the writing inside? I remain very wary. I feel like this has the potential to be gobsmackingly good or just abysmally train-wreck awful. Either way, I’ll likely be buying and reading it and expect a review come October.

Picture credit: The Debutantes by Marta Aronssohn-Danzig (c1889); nothing to do with anything, really, I just like the look on their faces: “really Jess?, you’re talking about Carson McCullers again? Sigh.”