But if your early American history is deficient, Lee Miller's Roanoke gives a lot of information about the early English settlements, and the clashing with the existing Spanish settlements in Florida.

Reading the Best American Essays from 1986 to 2006, it’s tempting to create a composite portrait of the Preferred American Essayist: Educated at Harvard, he or she has spent significant time at the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, written proposals for New York Public Library Fellowships (often lovingly paraphrased in the essays) and received medical attention at Sloan Kettering Hospital. Chances are good she’s a doting dog owner who has done such things as lace her pet’s dinner with “Prozac, Buspar, Elavil, Effexor, Xanax, and Clomicalm” (Cathleen Shine, 2005) or write gourmet cookbooks for his discerning palate (Susan Orlean, 2005 and 2006). More likely than not, he (if it is a he) has had a lifelong love affair with fishing or baseball, preferably both. An added bonus is to discover—or at least reassess—a Jewish ancestor in one’s family tree.

Danielle Pafunda has posted the first half of a long interview with Arielle Greenberg about "the Gurlesque" in contemporary culture: There’s an interesting relationship to irony here: My generation (Gen X) was known for being cynical and glib, but I think a lot of what seemed posturing nostalgia—the way riot grrls, for example, carried kiddie lunchboxes—was an actual longing for the (complicated) promise of a 70s childhood, which itself was overshadowed by our parents’ cynicism, Watergate, Vietnam, the recession, etc. I think perhaps the reasons we return to these images from girlhood have to do with a longing for sincerity, for passion.

Bookslut favorite Tao Lin has a new book of poems out, Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, and a promotional blog to go with it. There's a trailer, movie reviews, and "every page edited 'half-assedly' into haikus."

Lewis Turco reflects on the 40th anniversary of The Book of Forms.

"Fauxhemia: The Same Old Same Old New York School": Meanwhile, Language Poetry distinguished itself as the slowest art movement ever. It took 20 years to get off the ground. Theory-heavy, they should have called it Talk Poetry. In it, politics is defined as ineffectual insurrection, yack attacks meant to land university jobs.

David Yezzi is interviewed in Men's News Daily about Azores: most poetry is utterly forgettable. Sometimes I forget it even before I’ve finished reading it.

Romeo & Juliet in Hades. (Via the International Exchange for Poetic Invention.)

David Whyte encourages executives to . . . quote more poetry: "In many ways, poetry is about making you more dangerous again, and re-creating a kind of innocence you've had all along," Whyte said.

Reviewing the new biography of Isaac Rosenberg: But he was surely the world's worst soldier. Bullied for his stature - he enlisted in the Bantams, a unit to accommodate short men - he endured with remarkable fortitude and his letters home are models of stoicism and humane humour.

It's been a difficult fifteen years. It would have been easier to find someone who would tell me I need to get rid of my anger, encourage me to get over it, help me to move on. It would have been easier to go to the local bookstore, buy some self-help books, and hurry home to enjoy my shiny new non-anger and my shiny new Love and my shiny new hard-on.

But where would we be if Beckett had bought The Anger Busting Workbook? If Vonnegut had bought The Anger Habit Workbook? If Flannery O'Connor had bought The Anger Workbook for Christians?

And with that, it is revealed that the Guardian blog has officially run out of ideas.

This coming from a magazine that gave a good review to that Rocco DiSpirito cookbook. It is pretty, yes, but you can't make a damn thing from it without a staff of ten. Most of their reviews make you believe they looked at the photography, scanned through a few recipes and decided, "There's absolutely nothing in here that will cause an explosion when mixed together, so it must be okay." Or maybe they're doing it so you know exactly which cookbook will leave you on the kitchen floor, sobbing into your souffle dish. I'm suddenly suspicious of their first pick, Fish Without a Doubt.

Happy Mothers Day, y'all.

The Theakstons Old Peculiar Crime Festival is quite conveniently the home of the Theakstons Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year. Go here to vote for the winner and wonder at the preponderance of lightbulbs on covers. British crime: still gloomy.

The brand spanking new Australian-Asian Literary Award is going to be worth $110,000, which in lit award pissing contest terms, puts it in league with the Man Booker. And Keno. Two of the three judges have been appointed: Pakistani author Kamila Shamsie and the charming Nury Vittachi. While they hustle up no. 3 judge and an Australian politician spouts some piffle about "the power to excite and expand the State's cultural horizons," Lee Siegel just heard that it's accepting text-message entries and is in need of a defibrillator. Chillax, Lee, this is what's gonna win.

In other news! Reading Jane Austen leads to a disappointing sex life.

The Mister Darcy Delusion is the notion, popularized by the early 19th century author Jane Austen, that the smug asshole who calls you fat at the party is really just a misunderstood studmuffin held in by early 19th century social conventions who will turn into Colin Firth if you give him a chance. Well chicas, Jane Austen died a spinster (thank you, Anne Hathaway) and it's the 21st century, and if he looks like a prick and he talks like a prick and he walks like a prick, well, chances are you've had sex with him.