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Like Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson announcing their divorce, the Times has tried to sneak very important news past us while we're all dazed and Thanksgiven and unable to process things! That's right: the 100 Notable Books of 2007 list is out. Actually maybe it is meant to help you with your holiday shopping, which you must begin today because God said so in the Bible. Anyway, the list includes all of the usual suspects, and also Vendela Vida. [NYT]

From the mailbag: "'Last Lecture' [remember, the book cowritten by the dying professor which was rumored to be selling for $6.75 million] is finally fucking over. Closed with Hyperion, like everyone knew it would, since they offered more. Gah! I hate beauty contests."

Ian McEwan, the serious literary yet still sort of airport-y author of Atonement, whose books all hinge on one dramatic moment when something terrible happens tells the Wall Street Journal today that his books don't all hinge on one dramatic moment when something terrible happens. "All it really says is that in my novels something happens. It got said, and then it got into the loop. It's a truism, really. It's true of any novel." Well, any novels that are made into big weepy holiday blockbusters.

We hear that the auction for 'The Last Lecture,' WSJ reporter Jeffrey Zaslow's poignant life-affirming book about cancerous professor and daytime talk-show regular Randy Pausch, has ended. However, the two final bidders (most likely Hyperion and HarperCollins) are now having what's known as a "beauty contest," where they jockey to demonstrate to the author and agent that they'd do best by the author. Publisher's Lunch dismisses the $6.75 million figure Keith Kelly quotes as being in highly inflated "New York Post dollars," But since we heard $6 million on Monday, we're inclined to believe that publishers really are banking on ill-fated profs being the new ill-fated pets.

Oprah has selected British author Ken Follett's cathedral-building and hott medieval sex themed 1989 bestseller 'The Pillars Of The Earth' as her next book club pick! Guess she likes the word "cunny" too. [Galleycat]

What was it like writing the book "Our Dumb World," Onion editor-in-chief Scott Dikkers? "What was it like? Do you know what it's like to bang your head against a concrete wall until you die of a brain hemorrhage? That's similar, I would say, to what it was like to make this atlas. There's really nothing inherently funny about land masses...." [Fishbowlny]

Borders Bookstores will each soon contain two 37-inch TVs to expand advertising opportunities within the stores—just like Jack-in-the-Box! BordersTV, as the platform is called, won't be showing reality programming or soft-core porn, but it sort of feels like that—can no one stay in business selling books without also providing with each purchase lattes, WiFi, pedicures, escalators, plush toys and a backrub? We suspect the phrase "entertainment experience" was used in the making of this concept, which means we hate it by default. [NYT]

"Carrying this book around recently I've caught more than a little flak, not least from my kids, who once thought of me as a literary intellectual ..." writes dissipated wunderkind Jay McInerney in a book called 'How To Talk About Books You Haven't Read.' Maybe Jay's kids are only pretending to have read Jay's books? That is the charitable explanation. [NYT]

Jodi Della Femina, daughter of legendary adman turned restaurateur Jerry, has sold a (cowritten) novel about class rage in the Hamptons. This is unsurprising because, when her annual Hamptons guidebook 'Jodi's Shortcuts' was first published in 1999, a typical old-monied response was, "That's the sort of thing that people of her background and breeding do to the places they claim to love." In the novel, which will be published by St. Martin's, "the heroine starts a new restaurant in the Hamptons and encounters the ever-present struggle for status, which cause problems when the owner of an upscale food shop in East Hampton decides to sabotage all of her hard work."

You can preorder James Frey's third novel 'Bright Shiny Morning' on Amazon for delivery this June 8. Boy, that's a fast turnaround for a September acquisition! Guess it didn't need to be edited much, being so genius and all.

"I know that most publishers and agents don't like to receive unsolicited proposals from un-agented authors," began the non-bcc'd email received today by almost every agent and editor currently working in book publishing. "But I am a new author who is trying to get her first novel published and I am hoping you will give me a chance and take a look at my novel ...My novel is entitled, "To Catch A Master Thief" and it is in the genre of contemporary romance/thriller. It is about the daughter of a master thief named Claire Barnes, who is a master thief herself. Her father is kidnapped by Don Qui Hon, a ruthless Chinese antiques collector, and held prisoner in Beijing when her father steals one of Don Qui Hon's prized Ming Dynasty vases. Don Qui Hon threatens to kill her father in five days, if Claire doesn't bring him the vase in China. With another master thief chasing after the vase for her own designs and Interpol agent Jack Norton chasing after her to use her as bait to catch her father to further his own career, Claire is in a race against time to save her father. As Jack and Claire are forced to work together, the sparks and passion between them fly, and so does the danger. In the end, Jack will have to decide on whether he wants to advance his career or lose the woman he loves." Oh, well in that case!

Being a Brooklyn Writer turns out to be exactly how you imagine it to be, if debut novelist Porochista Khakpour's Facebook status update is to be believed.

Good news for books! John Grisham's "Playing For Pizza"—the story of a washed-up American quarterback whose trip to Italy to play for the Parma Panthers leads to hijinx—is no longer #1 on the Times hardcover bestseller list. Bad news for books: "Playing for Pizza" is now at #3, bumped by a new Patricia Cornwell novel with "dead" in the title and a "paranormal romance" called "A Lick [hmm!] Of Frost." More distressingly, "The Orc King"—the story of a dark elf named Drizzt Do'Urden—is all the way down to #17. Of course, the list "is not a completely accurate barometer of what the reading public is buying," so phew.

Some publishing peon took Mediabistro's Galleycat blog to task this morning for painting a too-rosy picture of the industry, provoking a mix of responses from that blog's readership. "There are many people who slave away every day who would like for you to reflect their opinions as well," he or she wrote. Seriously, that's your beef with Galleycat? The response post was headlined "An editor's angstful cry draws mixed reactions." Angstful.

Ads for the paperback of "The Discomfort Zone," Jonathan Franzen's collection of essays, include the really mean ones. "Odious!" says Michiko Kakutani. [Papercuts]

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's memoir has sold to Knopf, surprising many, including Knopf editor Ash Green: "I thought Rupert Murdoch would get it," he said. "Because Murdoch for ten years supported Blair through his newspapers, and he has the Sunday Times first serialization, and he has HarperCollins, that seemed to be a natural fit. Our English cousins have strong connections to Blair, but I didn't think they quite equaled... I think there was some wonder here whether the agent was using us as a stalking horse to get Murdoch's price up." [NYO]