Though he famously refused to join the Oprah Book Club for The Corrections, it seems Franzen's letting his newest tome, Freedom, get pimped by the Empress of Everything. Wonder what changed! Maybe he just wants to piss off Jodi Picoult.

Your book club is so gay! That's what the Scorpions, a group of hard 20 and 30-something guys who meet for PBRs in Boston shitholes to talk about books, say. Their motto? "We read. We bleed. And we kick ass."