When the cat is away, the mouse will…blog almost exclusively about book news. For reasons that I’m sure will be obvious to no one, I’ve been thinking a lot about the relationships between books and authors and websites.

The Times recently did a piece on virtual book tours, which is definitely worth a read, especially if you’re new to the idea. I enjoyed the quotes from one Miss Felicia Sullivan, who is also the author of a forthcoming memoir (which I’m confident will be worth the week of UPS hassles I endured to procure my shiny new galley copy). But back to my point—some authors do neat stuff on their websites:

1) Maynard and Jennica is a forthcoming debut novel I fully expected to hate and accidentally adored instead. Author Rudolph (aka Rudy or Benjamin) Delson’s website is charmingly underdesigned, and features an entertaining plea for assistance in gaming Google—write a sentence about Rudolph Delson and his website, and encourage searches to yield his personal page instead of an unflattering photo. (As a fellow unphotogenic, oddly named soul, I brood frequently and pointlessly on my Google image, occasionally requesting picture removal—thanks Larry!)

2) The small-but-badass Garrett County Press has a new memoir coming out in November, and a nifty Miranda Julyian website to promote it.

3) And Mark Batty Publisher, about whose uniquely beautiful books I’ve gushed in this space before, has just published A Field Guide to the North American Family. It’s an illustrated novella by Garth Risk Hallberg told in episodes like “Adolescence,” “Boredom,” and “Chemistry.” The photos accompanying each topic were chosen from 700 submissions uploaded to the pre-publication website by various artists. Soon written submissions will be accepted as well, although I guess we’ll have to wait for book two (hint, hint, Garth and Mark) to see those in the impeccably designed full-color glory of the first sixty-three.