…and I’m back from holiday.  Hope you didn’t miss me too much. 

• Awards! The 2013 Arthur C. Clarke Award went to Chris Beckett for Dark Eden.  See the nominees (as well as the other four big SF/Fantasy award nominees) here. This year’s Agatha Award (for traditional mysteries) for Best Novel went to Louise Penny’s The Beautiful Mystery (Inspector Gamache #8).  Click here for the rest of the category winners.  Another award with many delicious categories is the James Beard Foundation Award, featuring all manner of cookbooks (oh, yeah!).  Cookbook of the Year went to Gran Cocina Latina: The Food of Latin America by Maricel E. Presilla.

• Interview! James Salter celebrates the publication of his first novel in over 30 years (All That Is) by talking to the Guardian.  They also feature one of Castle’s poker buddies, James Patterson, in their Life in Books series.  The Huffington Post interviewed Maya Angelou on the occasion of her latest Mom & Me & Mom.

• Did you celebrate Mother’s Day last Sunday? In case it all got a little too sugary for you, here are The 10 Worst Mothers in Books.  See it as an antidote.

• The ever-insightful Lionel Shriver writes a strong essay about the West’s obsession with body size. Time to pick up her newest, Big Brother (which continues the essay’s theme), then!  Speaking of essays-tying-in-with-new-novels, William Sutcliffe explains how a visit to the West Bank Wall changed his new novel.

• The NY Times highlights a few children’s book apps (including Miffy).

• Lists! As ever, Flavorwire has bunches, including Writers Inspired by Dreams, The Fascinating Stories Behind Classic Book Titles, and Publishers’ Craziest Schemes to Avoid Book Spoilers (thank you, Dan Brown’s Inferno).

• A case of “It’s a book, people, not the end of the world!“

• John Green fans! Here’s some casting news on the The Fault in Our Stars movie.  HuffPost also has a slideshow with upcoming/recently-released YA books-to-movies.

• And finally: Coverflip, or how the gender of the author might translate onto the book cover.  Long live author Maureen Johnson’s twitter followers, eh? 

Thanks to PeterL and Aviva for some of the above links!