So Much for the Immediacy of Online Journalism

Two weeks ago, Edward Wyatt did a New York Times piece about the recent wave of fancy 9/11-themed books by fancy writers. A week after that, I finally managed to come up with something to say about it. But even that was a sprinter's pace compared to the literary editors at Salon, who chime in thirteen days after Wyatt with their thoughts on "what to read (from) the 9/11 novels." And what do they come up with, you might ask? Ian McEwan, Jonathan Safran Foer, and Frederic Beigbeder.

Good thing we have the literary counsel of Salon to draw upon so we know to read the new novels from McEwan and Foer. Because, Lord knows, the average Salon reader never would have hit upon either of those two authors on his or her own. (Admittedly, the Beigbeder isn't quite so blatantly on the general reading public's radar, but then again, USA Today was touting it over a month ago, and even they were picking up on the advance buzz from the bookbiz press.)