Soup and Salad: "The Man Who Loved Children," Teen Stieg, Go West, "The Squickerwonkers," Bookshelf Porn

On today's menu:

1.  When Jonathan Franzen writes so passionately about a 70-year-old novel, you really feel like you have no other choice but to run out, barefoot and bareheaded in the rain to the nearest bookstore ten blocks away, dodging traffic, bike messengers and other perils, to buy the damned thing:  Christina Stead's The Man Who Loved Children.

2.  Science-fiction stories by a very young Stieg Larsson come to light, just in time for the current global Stiegmania.  The article's money-quote comes from Sweden's deputy national librarian:

Gram said it would be up to Larsson's estate-holders -- his father and brother -- whether to publish the works, but said they should think twice before doing so, since the early works could potentially harm the author's reputation.

Remind me to tell you sometime about the novel I wrote when I was 13:  Mrs. Winter and the Pool of Teeth, a mystery in which a Miss Marple knockoff investigates the death of a Hollywood director who fell into a swimming pool stocked with piranha.  Some things should remain unpublished.

3.  The Library of America is offering a free download (.pdf) of a Nathanael West short-short: "Business Deal."  It's pretty funny, as far as satires of Hollywood go.

4.  Speaking of Hollywood and unintentional laughter:  "Lost" star Evangeline Lilly (aka Kate, aka "Freckles") plans to write a children's book.  Working title: "The Squickerwonkers."  No further comment.

5.  And, finally, I leave you with a new site I just stumbled across, courtesy of Like Fire:  Bookshelf Porn, featuring photos of bookshelves doing scandalous things!  In all sorts of positions!  Some of the books might even be French!