1: Friend and writer Roland Kelts contributes a review of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz. Publishers Weekly also ran a write-up of the cover a few days ago.

2: You've probably heard about it but The Thing is shipping. As the site says:

THE THING is an object based quarterly publication. Each issue of THE THING is conceived of by an individual artist, wrapped by the editors ( Jonn Hershend and Will Rogan ) and sent to the subscribers. The first four artists creating objects for THE THING are:

Issue 1 by the eminent Miranda July is a giant window shade with the phrase "If this shade is down I'm not who you think I am."

3: This man stayed up for 11 days straight by swtching concentration between his left and right brain hemispheres. Eerily similar to the protagonist in Murakami Haruki's Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World.