The Gargoyle appears at #14 (tied with #13) on the 8/24 NYT Fiction Bestseller list, joining the other debut fiction titles that have enjoyed pre-pub media attention this summer:

• #3 The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, rising from #5 after two weeks on the list
• #6 The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, down from #4 last week, its first dip after rising steadily up the list for the last nine weeks
• #7 The Lace Reader, its second week at #7
• #14 The Gargoyle, its first week on the list

The New York Times Book Review lets Princeton English professor Sophie Gee have at The Gargoyle in the 8/15 issue. She has a fine time picking apart the book’s inconsistencies and literary pretensions, but is less eloquent about the book’s appeal, 

As straight-up entertainment,The Gargoyle is so-so. It’s not exactly unputdownable, but it has enough unexplained details to remain interesting. Could it be true that Marianne lived in the 14th century, and how did she get to the present? Why does she now compulsively carve stone gargoyles in the basement of her house, and what have these grotesque physical forms to do with the hero’s own disfiguring burn scars? All fine questions, which build to a moderately satisfying conclusion.

Many news organizations announced today that Randy Pausch, author of The Last Lecture, died in his home in Virginia earlier today. 

• New York Times, ‘Last Lecture’ Professor Randy Pausch, 47, Dies

• Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Randy Pausch, noted CMU prof, succumbs to cancer

• USA Today, ‘Last Lecture’ professor, Randy Pausch, dies at 47

• MSNBC, ‘Last lecture’ professor dies of cancer

In the days since writer Thomas M. Disch shot himself, there have been many touching remembrances of him including,

• Los Angeles Times, Two views of Thomas M. Disch, by James Sallis.

The “two views” are from the notes the Sallis kept of times he spent with Disch and how he remembers him today.

• Salon, Remembering Thomas M. Disch, By Elizabeth Hand

A long, satisfying look at the author’s “dark, satirical, heretical books”

• Entertainment Weekly, PopWatch blog, “In Memoriam: Tom Disch, science-fiction master and poet,”
  Ken Tucker
  Guess what? Disch reviewed EW. This is the only appreciation that includes links to his “witty takes on everything from the Random House Encyclopedia to an appreciation of Dr. Seuss“

The New York Times today reports that William Warner, who won the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction in 1977 for his book about Chesapeake Bay crabs and the men who fish them, died on April 18th.

As an ex-Marylander (and a continuing crab enthusiast), I’m sorry to hear the news, but glad his book was received so well and that it lives on, in print and in libraries.

Beautiful Swimmers: Watermen, Crabs and the Chesapeake Bay

• Paperback: $14.99
• Publisher: Back Bay Books (March 21, 1994)
• ISBN-10: 0316923354
• ISBN-13: 978-0316923354