Jenny Diski makes a beautiful case for the late Stanley Middleton.

• Her LRB colleague Thomas Jones presents an Oulipolian puzzle.

• From the books-I'm-glad-I'll-never-have-to-read department: the Little Professor examines a seriously nasty-sounding antisemitic sequel to Daniel Deronda.

• "I just stared: it was like watching someone fold a paper napkin into a remote control helicopter, and then pilot it around the room": a small wonder from the other art of letters.

• After telegraphese, shorthand: Pitman, with all those neat geometric shapes, always struck me as being the ideal writing system for Laputa.

• Sony introduces a smaller, cheaper e-reader, presumably intended as a Cool-er kill-er.

• Whoever you had dinner with, says Salman Rushdie, it wasn't me.

• Hitchhiker sequel hype starts in earnest.