As the weeks go on, more and more of us are starting to notice that Hollywood’s writers are on strike. One by one new television shows are running out of fresh material.

The National Book Critics Circle has a blog and they’ve asked some of the country’s best literary critics to list the “five books a critic believes reviewers should have in their libraries.

Speaking of Einstein–have you ever wanted to explain the world on a napkin? The Edge, self-described as “an online collective of deep thinkers,” has teamed up with the Serpentine Gallery in London to participate in a month-long Experiment Marathon.

As we’ve discussed before on this blog, one of the major casualties in the shifting new media landscape is the traditional investigative journalist–someone with the time and resources to research in-depth stories.

I just heard Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, speaking at Stanford Law School today. Wales is working on some new projects that he hopes will harness the community-driven collaboration of Wikipedia.

Earlier this week I spoke on the phone with Alan Weisman, the author of The World Without Us. (See our initial piece on his book.) Alan was gracious enough to take some time out of his publicity schedule to share his thoughts on the book, the world, his writing process, and more. What follows is an edited transcript of our conversation.

The MacArthur Foundation recently announced its latest crop of “genius grant” recipients. Each winner receives $500,000 “with no strings attached” and they can use the money to live, to fund research, or to buy a very modest condo in the Bay Area. As usual, the recipients come from a wide range of fields and backgrounds.

David Halberstam’s no stranger to writing big books about big wars, and he reportedly thought of his final work, The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War, as a “bookend” to his classic on Vietnam, The Best and the Brightest. The book comes out this week with a very unusual publicity blitz.

Apple took the world of digital entertainment by storm when it started offering new television shows on iTunes in 2005. The big networks signed on (eventually) and it was suddenly possible to catch an episode of The Office or Lost for $1.99 on a video iPod or a PC.

An organization called College Scholarships is offering a $10,000 scholarship this year for a college student who blogs about “unique and interesting information about you and/or things you are passionate about.