On the shelf

Oh well. Just hand us that one next volume instead of simply tempting us with the possibility of so many more.

Go Get Saddam

Meanwhile, the Bush administration8217;s case for a prompt invasion of Iraq is being presented eloquently on the bookshelves too. At least it has been by Kenneth Pollack 8212; who followed the issue as an analyst for the CIA in the nineties and was later director of Gulf affairs for the National Security Council in Washington 8212; in The Threatening Storm.

His basic thesis is simple: that the longer America dithers, the worse the Iraqi threat will become. He seeks refocus on the current debate. It8217;s not about what losses may accrue during an attack, it8217;s not about the destabilisation in the region that may follow 8212; it, says Pollack, is merely a question of how much worse the situation could get if the Saddam threat is not tackled forthwith, if what he says is a hopeless containment policy is persisted with.

Given the dynamics of the publishing industry, we reckon it8217;s only a matter of time before more books on Iraq tumble out of the printing presses. Hopefully, that8217;ll end the neverending flood of 9/11 books.

Analyse This, Now

Amidst talk of war, a celebration of reading continues apace. And, what better way to celebrate than make lists of favourite books, books that are must-reads. The Guardian is certainly at it. Five writers were invited to choose 10 books from their area of interest for an Essential Library. Here8217;s Steve Jones8217;s list of science books:

E = mc2 by David Bodanis
Climbing Mount Improbable by Richard Dawkins
The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond
Trilobite by Richard Fortey
Bully For Brontosaurus by Stephen Jay Gould
The Man Who Loved Only Numbers by Paul Hoffmann
Cosmos by Carl Sagan
The Code Book by Simon Singh
Mendeleyev8217;s Dream by P. Strathern
The Double Helix by James Watson.
Fiction After Fact

And last of all, if over the past couple of years you have managed to remain blithely oblivious of a literary phenomenon called Dave Eggers, here8217;s a last chance to catch up on his bio. Eggers, now 32, stunned all and sundry in 2000 when his first book about raising his siblings after the death of his parents, grandiosely titled A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, became a huge bestseller. So far, so conventional, if you can call the memoir that, with its meandering asides and basketful of innovative literary ploys.

Now Eggers has done the unthinkable for a bestselling writer. He8217;s shunned the big publishing houses, he8217;s turned his back on the megabookstores, and has published his first novel, You Shall Know Our Velocity, himself.

This service for independent bookstores struggling to survive has gladdened many a heart. But is it merely one big publicity stunt? Can8217;t answer that one, because Eggers does not do press interviews.

But there is one question many are asking after reading this novel about a man who makes a pile and then goes around the world distributing it: did Eggers too give away most of the millions he got from his first book?