The bimonthly token award ceremony to ease the existential trepidations of writers wide and far has once again taken place, this time under the supervision of the National Book Critics Circle who have announced their champions of 2007. The decision came after several days filled with bloodshed and crying while trying to sift through the many fine publications that popped out of the pervious year. Warm surprises include the ineffably talented Mary Jo Bang taking......

--Hug a social worker today. If you've ever wondered why the Department of Social Services couldn't stop an act of violence from happening, read this eye-opening article on just how hard it is to be a social worker. According to the piece, "between one-third and three-quarters of all social workers nationwide have been threatened, physically assaulted, or had their property damaged." [Boston Globe] --A Bridgewater State College student and his girlfriend, a student at......

--Two months since reopening after a five year hiatus and one million dollars of renovations, the Golden Banana strip club's future is in jeopardy after a man was shot in its parking lot last night. He was hit in the shoulder and is expected to survive. The club, however, was closed for code violations in 2003, and could face penalties from Peabody officials who were already leery about the establishment being reopened. [Boston Herald]......

Human Rights Watch International Film Festival Various Showings, January 16-20 Museum of Fine Arts Boston and Peabody Essex Museum It can be easy to get caught up in local and national news, especially when election coverage is hot and murderous Marines are being sought. But even in the face of exciting events, we shouldn't lose sight of larger, less glamorous issues like human rights. Human Rights Watch has been keeping an eye on international abuses......

Boston came in at number 10 in a recent list of America's most literate cities. What's surprising is that it didn't come in higher given the quality of the authors who come in to read, the top-notch bookstores, and the fact that good books help get us through the cold weather. Central Connecticut State University just released these figures and draws its findings based on "newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources,......

Ethan Gilsdorf and Ted Weesner, Jr. Friday, December 14, 7:00 pm Willoughby and Baltic Art Space 195 G Elm Street, Somerville (T: Davis Square) Free Ethan Gilsdorf's official site Listings for readings may be slim while everyone is busy for the holidays, but it's quality that matters. Two recipients of fellowships from the Somerville Arts Council will be sharing their latest projects for free tomorrow night. Journalist/poet Ethan Gilsdorf and novelist Ted Weesner, Jr., are......

John Fulton Reading With Joshua Henkin Brookline Booksmith Tonight, October 22, 7:00 pm Free Fulton's Official Site John Fulton doesn't go for sly pop-culture references or verbal pyrotechnics in his short-story collection The Animal Girl. Instead, he zooms in on the emotions of his older characters who are attempting to find love. With Match.com and eHarmony, dating and romance seem easy and ordinary topics, but Fulton throws obstacles in the paths of his characters, and......

Shalom Auslander Reading Thursday, October 11, 7:00 pm Brookline Booksmith Free More info From far away Shalom Auslander's memoir looks delicate and sweet, with lightly outlined white images traced on a red background. The title appears in a cursive font with looping letters. Then you look at the actual words on the cover--Foreskin's Lament. In this memoir, Auslander and his long departed foreskin have a lot to gripe about. Auslander was raised in an Orthodox......

The Harvard Coop went all RIAA on students last week and told students that they couldn't bring pens and take notes because they don't want students buying cheaper books. And Thursday they called police on three students who were taking down ISBN numbers so they could find those books online. The Cambridge PD clearly felt it was a waste of their time because they let the students stay. They weren't shoplifting. And, besides, it's the......

--Any reader of crime logs must admit that Northeastern University generates some of the most entertaining crime logs known to humanity. A crime log is not judged on the amount of mayhem listed (though it is good to know what is going on in one's neighborhood, don't walk along at night, etc.) but by the sheer stupidity of the crime involved. And Northeastern students know how to deliver. They've given us an incident worthy of......

Keggers and CliffsNotes Grub Street Headquarters 160 Boylston Street Sunday, September 23, 7:00-9:00 pm More info Sunday night: a time for football, Extreme Home Makeover, and staying in, right? You couldn't be more wrong. Sunday night--at least this Sunday night--is a time to don your favorite college sweatshirt, put on your thinking and drinking caps, and head out to Keggers and CliffsNotes, the latest installment in the Dirty Water Reading Series. Co-hosted by Redivider, Quick......

Well, on the bright side, Daisuke has nothing to complain about this morning in terms of getting run support. Before the last of the Blue Jays' traveling party had cleared Customs, the Red Sox had staked Dice to a 10-1 lead, the big blow courtesy of a 3-run shot by the red-hot Mike Lowell, [Editorial Insert to Whatever Front Office Types Are Reading This. There's going to be temptation this offseason to make a run......

On Saturday, cardio-respiratory failure deprived Worcester, Massachusetts of a woman who had been on life support for nearly two decades and, some believe, a bedridden miracle worker. Audrey Marie Santo fell into a pool at age 3 (on the same day of the year and exact time of day that the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, according to her web site) and, after an excessive phenobarbital prescription and subsequent coma, awoke in a state......

Allegedly Robert P. Dooley has defrauded Home Depot of enough money to build his own house. Approximately $330k of merchandise was swiped by the former IRS official. The Boston Globe reports that the former Salem resident would walk into a Home Depot store, fill his cart with “floor tiles, casement windows, sliding doors, or other items” and bypass the checkout line. He'd head straight to the returns line (always a painfully long line in Bostonist's......

Martin Amis will read from House of Meetings at 6:00 pm at the Brattle Theater, courtesy of Harvard Book Store. By the way, tonight's reading with Paul Auster is sold out. Martin Amis has been trying to get Stalin out of his system for a while. It's not working. Amis' House of Meetings can be considered a fictional take on life - or what was left of it - under Stalin, a topic Amis covered......

Coming into a Monday after a long weekend feels so wrong. Friday's off are usually arranged through vacation time or, cough, a sick day. Last week the veterans made us do it. But it's back to work and it's raining buckets with no sun in sight for the first part of the week. Luckily we've got some great music to keep us going this week. From enduring jazz superstars to indie rockers you might......

Reading in the Herald yesterday about the second random dog attack in Brockton in a week, Bostonist came across this sentence: "Ellis [the dog owner], who state law holds liable for the attack provided Talis [the victim] was not trespassing or abusing Deuce [the dog], had not been cited as of yesterday." This made us wonder: What are the laws concerning dog bites here in the Commonwealth? The answer is delightfully simple: The owner of......

How long has it been since the Boston Herald ran a punny, animal-related headline? If you ask Bostonist, even one day is too long, and as far as we can tell, it's been much more than that (over a week, by our count). Luckily, the drought is over, as today's edition of the paper that's strong as ever despite selling off its assets features this fabulous example of the art: "Fundraiser shows who's paws-itively top......

Venture capital, that risky investing that took a turn for the worse when the tech bubble burst with the new millennium, is backing Boston businesses again. Honestly, we’re not surprised. After making our way through a lengthy Boston Globe article on the Boston start-up blog directory, Gather.com, it’s abundantly clear that there is money to be had in the worlds of new technology. Gather has grabbed $6 mil. and they’re still running in Beta. But......

Reading the Boston Globe today, Bostonist caught a mention of “pimps and prostitutes.” For years we thought it was “pimps and hos,” perhaps that's just a little too edgy for our town’s newspaper of record. The reported brothel was running out of the Allston/Brighton neighborhood. After receiving complaints of unusual traffic in the area local police began to investigate. The alleged pimps (three men over 50 from Allston, Brookline, and Quincy) were hauled into court......

Part of the charm of our fair city (and our fair Commonwealth, and, really, our whole fair region from Rhode Island to Canada) is that people talk funny and place names aren't pronounced the way they're spelled. This is a much written-about phenomenon and Bostonist need not elaborate further upon it here. But something we can't understand is why people who claim to be selling their services in Massachusetts and for the benefit of......

Fearing the worst, Bostonist stocked up on candles this weekend. The news that NStar workers were going approaching a deadlock in negotiations and were going on strike made us feel a little uneasy about the fate of our electricity. Reading the Boston Globe report on the crisis hasn’t calmed fears much: NStar spokeswoman Caroline Allen said early today, "We have qualified managers and contractors ready to step in and maintain critical services for our customers.......

Mayor Menino is calling on Boston religious leaders and city officials today to discuss the recent surge in violent crimes. Boston's homicide count is currently at 15 for this year, and it's only April. The mayor intends for this to be the first of several meetings this year. It's tough to say what is on the agenda, but it's likely that they are mulling over recommendations by the Legislature's Public Safety Committee. In February, the......