Our Daily News will return after Labor Day. Meanwhile, here is a sampling of top stories from recent days:

Michele Filgate lists twelve books to choose for your end-of-summer reading list [2], including Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, and Karolina Waclawiak's How to Get Into the Twin Palms. [2](Vulture)

Mike Shatzkin accesses the possible meaning behind a reported slow down [3] in the publishing industry's transition from print to digital. (Shatzkin Files)

The current issue of Vogue features a series of Annie Leibovitz photographs recreating a picnic with Henry James, Morton Fullerton, Edith Wharton, and others, at Wharton's estate in the Berkshires. Acting as stand-ins—and dressed in period costume—are authors Jonathan Safran Foer, Jeffrey Eugenides, and Junot Díaz [4]. (Volume 1 Brooklyn)

Citing David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, author Jonathan Evison suggests readers desire a collaborative challenge [5]. (Wall Street Journal)

"I was just reading the Washington Post and I came across a book review by a woman whose name, to this day, makes me shudder. Why? Because she was a nightmare when she came to visit my MFA program." On her blog, author Sandra Beasley offers advice for visiting writers. [6]

In 1943, All the King's Men author Robert Penn Warren celebrated his thirty-eighth birthday with "a particularly insidious punch," and Paper and Salt has the recipe [7].