Literary Matters

Sorry, world! But it is time once again for "Literary Matters." There are just two, so you can handle it. 1) CROOKED LETTER, CROOKED LETTER by "Blog" Buddy Tom Franklin is not done with the New York Times best seller list yet! It has climbed to #22! See? That was a good literary matter. Here's another: 2) Our friend Kelly Hogan picked up a "lurid" used paperback of Upton Sinclair's "anti-alcohol diatribe" THE CUP OF FURY. Says she, "You'll never want a double dirty martini so desperately...and have it taste so sharp and delicious...and plant that resonating rubber boing dart so deep in your bones...as when you're reading...THE CUP! OF! FURY!" (Exclamation points awesome, and hers.) I think that blurb should be plastered all over the reprint. Plastered, ha ha! But Sinclair would hate her blurb, Hogan thinks. "He was a lifelong BONAFIDE teetotalling keg-basher," she notes. (Pictured, Tom Franklin. Not really. It's Upton Sinclair. OR IS IT?)