What do an ex-Python, Martha Stewart, and a woman in the running for first female poet laureate all have in common? Come on now, use your deductive reasoning skills. They all somehow feature in this week’s Book Grocer, of course! Monday: Novelist David Benioff has a few recognisable names on his CV – he’s both collaborated with Spike Lee and written the screenplay for The Kite Runner. Tonight Benioff is at Foyles to discuss......

Even on its quietest weeks, London is something of a happy haven for bibliophiles such as ourselves, though we may be doing nothing more than perusing one of the city’s many lovely bookshops. This week, however, we’re in a veritable book geek heaven, as the London literary scene goes all glittery, playing host to some major names and fantastic events, leaving us tongue-tied and weak at the knees. Do we gush? Very well then,......

"Y'all are making Brighton seem like where the party's at", yells DJ Big Whiz from behind the decks. The roar of protest from the crowd, packed tightly underneath Cargo's Victorian arches so movement is reduced to peristalsis-like shuffles, is the desired response: Londoners don't take well to comparisons with our southern cousin. As his DJ riles the crowd, Definitive Jux rapper Aesop Rock lounges across the stage with a Cheshire-cat grin. On the second......

Gothamist learned about the craziest urban nightmare come true: A huge python found in the bathroom pipes. It was also a nightmare for some Yankees fans, as manger Joe Torre declined to come back and manage the Bronx Bombers. At least the city's attempt to give some direction to subway riders was interesting, pranksters went shirtless at the Fifth Avenue Abercrombie & Fitch and the I Heart Brooklyn Girls calendars came out. And just......

Londonist asks that most pressing of daily concerns: where to go on your lunch break. Benugo Throughout London Average Lunch Price: £5 Rating: 7.5 out of 10 Snoop around the Internet and you’ll find several references to sandwich shop Benugo’s free WiFi. For example, this post by Gavin Bell suggests that other cafés ‘should take the lead from Benugo and offer free WiFi like they offer free sugar’ because the ‘cost per month of......

Is this the face of the UK’s most famous graffiti artist? (After sagittal inversion and colour enhancement to make him fit into his own artwork.) A reader tip-off led us to an article on Complex.com, purporting to show elusive artist Banksy. The Bristol-born wall sprayer is very protective of his identity, and spoke to The New Yorker this week about the difficulties of remaining anonymous. So is he finally unmasked? The snaps were allegedly......

The Londonist Literary List appears every Tuesday. If you'd like to bring an event to our attention, please email londonistlit@gmail.com. Those of us with an addiction to lists may have looked on folornly at this recent compilation of no less than 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die - but it did make us think of a drinking game to play. It includes a shot glass, a bottle of cheap vodka, three pairs......

DCist helps us make more sense of the world this week. Posts like this concert review are the reason for Scott Stapp. DCist also enumerates the reasons for playing ultimate frisbee, Condi's tight buns, their love of a local convenience store, and their jealousy of a person in Seattle calling the city. LAist documented graf artist Banksy's most recent visit to LA in one two three posts. They also found the best possible use......

This week: Brokeback Mountain, Match Point and Just Friends. Plus film news and gossip. Well after the festive break and a whole host of pre-Christmas cinematic dirge isn't it nice to start the new year off with a release that everyone just loves? That film is of course Brokeback Mountain, Ang Lee's tale of cowboy love based on a 1997 New Yorker story by Annie Proulx and starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal. It......

In today's New York Times the fantastically-monikered R.W. Apple Junior (Associate Editor of the paper) has written an article designed to answer that age old question: "Where does a visiting New Yorker or Parisian - or for that matter a country squire in town for a night or two - turn for a first-class English meal?" (A country squire?) The article is of course inspired by the now infamous comments of Mr Jacques Chirac,......

The last time Woody Allen was in town we completely failed in our mission to stalk him across the city. For that, we can only apologise. This time we are determined to do a much better job of following Woody's every move...and if we happen to get a glimpse of Scarlett Johansson then that's no bad thing either right? Anway, on to the spying. The following report comes courtesy of Sarah Stodola of methree.net:......

Today is the 'birthday' of London's most famous, fictitious detective and the most celebrated resident of Baker Street: Sherlock Holmes. The New York Sun seems to be the only paper celebrating the anniversary with this article on the Baker Street Irregulars (the contemporary society not the fictitious gang). But there are of course a number of things you can personally do if you feel like celebrating the great detective. Your first stop should be......