Happy Friday. Here are twenty photos of authors whooping it up.

By way of balance, a catalogue of authors’ ailments.

The end of an era: the Borders flagship sign comes down.

In related news, Barnes & Noble reported tepid holiday sales.

“There aren’t any obvious candidates for the Nobel Prize and the prize committee is in an unenviable situation.” The lackluster rationale for Steinbeck’s 1962 win. (Lawrence Durrell, meanwhile, “gives a dubious aftertaste … because of [his] monomaniacal preoccupation with erotic complications.”)