Reading for the Weekend

To go with your hot toddy, a few interesting articles and items of note.

• This was pointed out earlier today on Twitter by @sarahw, but take a look at the New York Times Paperback Bestsellers list. The number one book is a fifty year-old novel (and a good one, at that).
  

• I'm not sure how everyone felt about Elizabeth Alexander's inaugural poem, but the text is here. It will be available at Vroman's, via the excellent Graywolf Press, on February 3.

• Tomorrow night at 7 p.m., the National Book Critics Circle will announce the finalists for its annual awards. They'll be live-blogging the event. I'll be guessing the winners in various categories again. I did okay last year. Or rather, I got the fiction one right.

• And finally, if ever there was a book cover that made me want to read a book, this is it (via You'll Eat it and You'll Like it):