Algernon. Do you really keep a diary? I’d give anything to look at it. May I? Cecily. Oh no. [Puts her hand over it.] You see, it is simply a very young girl’s record of her own thoughts and impressions, and consequently meant for publication.

I love this moment in China Miéville's The City & the City: The narrator (for this is an I-book), Inspector Tyador Borlu, is a noir cop in a fictional Balkan capital, Corwi is his assistant, and in their language aj Tyrko means Turkish-style.

How can you use the market place to predict future classics?  How could you even bet on the literary future?  EBay has found a way -- a really interesting one.  The futures markets tell us that Darren Shan (author of the young adult series Cirque du Freak) is more than twice as valuable as of today than New Yorker darling David Mitchell.  But Ken Follett is a cut above that.How do I know?