Elmore Leonard’s new book, Djibouti, has arrived!

Elmore Leonard is pretty much my favorite writer ever (I say that today; tomorrow I might say Neil Gaiman, the next day I might say Walt Whitman but for today let’s stick with Dutch).

Monday was Elmore Leonard’s 85th birthday, his fortieth novel, Djibouti, came out on Tuesday, and the trailer for the second season of the FX series Justified came out Wednesday. Three great reasons to celebrate what a prolific, generous writer has gifted readers like me. Here’s the man, the book, and the video after the jump:

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My Five Favorite Blog Posts of 2009

I didn’t blog that much this year. Of the blog writing I did do, here are five entries I feel are worth your time: Elmore Leonard Answers My Questions Elmore Leonard is one of my top three favorite writers and the opportunity to correspond with him via Barnes & Noble’s message boards was one of … Read more

My Summer Reading List

I have an ambitious reading list for this summer. Just like my dedication of two hours to write a day (or ten hours per week), I’m challenging myself to read for ninety minutes a day on Monday thru Wednesday plus Friday, or six hour a week. I tend to read 40 pages in an hour, … Read more

Elmore Leonard answers my questions

Last week, Elmore Leonard answered reader questions at the Barnes & Noble Center Stage, a message board thread in which prominent writers are given an opportunity to interact with fans. I’ve read a lot about Leonard’s approach to writing, thoughts on writers, and so on that it took me a little while to think of … Read more

Elmore Leonard’s ‘Road Dogs’ is out this week

Steady readers of this blog know I’m a nut for western-turned-crime writer Elmore Leonard. If you visit my LibraryThing profile, you’ll see that I own more Elmore Leonard books than I do any other author. This isn’t saying much because it’s easy to have a whole shelf full of his writings, considering the man has … Read more

Good Books = Good Movies?

One of my MFA compatriots, Bryan Johnson, recently wrote about film adaptations of novels and this week a few new publicity photos and an “insider scoop” about two novel-to-film adaptations coming up got me thinking this week… Two of my favorite modern novels, The Road by Cormac McCarthy and The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, … Read more

Elmore Leonard on “said.”

The latest blog post over at ElmoreLeonard.com made by his assistant, Gregg Sutter, points readers to an audio interview with Leonard by Kendra Nordin about his Ten Rules of Writing, now in book form, plus a brief accompanying article by Elizabeth A. Brown. The article’s funny, and the interview is one of those rare instances … Read more