Inside Jacket

Pop music has long been subject to changing times and tastes, but some things never change, nor, it seems, do they die. That’s the case with Keith Richards, whose memoir, “Life,” has brought him back to our collective attention recently. David Remnick, in his review of the book, opens with a story about the most-likely-to-die list that New Musical Express created in 1973, which featured Keith Richards in the pole position. The magazine, Remnick writes, “having kept Keith at No. 1 on its deathwatch list for ten years, finally gave up and conceded his immortality.” That was nearly thirty years ago. In honor of the immortal Mr. Richards, we’ve assembled four covers of some other musical memoirs. Good luck!

Submit the first fully correct response via e-mail and win a copy of the brand-new anthology “The Only Game in Town: Sportswriting from The New Yorker.” In the event of confusion, consult our official rules. We’ll announce the winner tomorrow afternoon.

After the Nobel, back to the classroom: Mario Vargas Llosa at Princeton.

Where would Holmes be without Watson? The ten best literary sidekicks.

What would Dickens make of steampunk?

James Wolcott on the strengths and weaknesses of comedians’ memoirs.

Three new books about Dracula, that “sleazy old reprobate” who “just won’t die.”

Mark Peters on the history and “frightening range” of the word “bully.”

A new study suggests that, long before you proofread, your fingers can sense when you’ve made a typo.

The best-selling Arabic-language novelist Alaa al-Aswany has objected to the translation of one of his novels into Hebrew.

Beware stacked adjectives: Alexander McCall Smith on the dangers of overwriting.

Indonesia’s constitutional court strikes down a fifty-year-old law that had allowed the Attorney General’s Office to ban controversial books.

Why speaking two or more languages might be good for your brain.

Missou-REE or Missou-RAH? Calvin Trillin settles an age-old dispute.

Garth Williams’s original 1952 cover art for E. B. White’s “Charlotte’s Web” sold at auction for more than $155,000.

A scene from Tony Blair’s memoir is in the running for the Literary Review’s Bad Sex Award.

Reading-group members vote on the best book-club books.

Of the seventy-three authors’ houses open to the public in the United States, not all are terribly interesting—or historically accurate.

“If there are liars, journalism will out them”: Gay Talese on sports, writing, and his new book, “The Silent Season of a Hero.”

What happens when you put a poem through Google Translate?

National Book Award Finalists announced: view the full list here.

Bartleby had Asperger’s; Tiny Tim suffered from distal renal tubular acidosis: on undiagnosed maladies in literature.

Hope or satisfaction? In honor of Snow White’s two hundredth birthday, a look at the different types of fairy-tale endings.

Watch a novel being written live by thirty-six authors.

Bloomsbury will reprint fifty-thousand copies of Howard Jacobson’s “The Finkler Question,” the winner of the Man Booker Prize.

Sample six of the one hundred digested twentieth-century classics from John Crace’s Brideshead Abbreviated.

The Washington Post reviews three books about UFOs.

Why Thomas Jefferson would want us to build a National Digital Library.

“White people had all the power and blacks had none”: read an excerpt from Condoleezza Rice’s memoir about growing up in segregated Birmingham.

Magazine editors rank J. K. Rowling higher than the Queen on a list of Britain’s most influential women.

Another reason to stay in school: a new study finds that college dropouts cost taxpayers billions.

From Jacket Copy, a list of the ten best “best of” books of 2010.

Betsy Burton, owner of The King’s English Bookshop in Salt Lake City, explains how a little-known provision of healthcare reform will save her business.

Brain cancer, sterility, and more: “Disconnect” author Devra Davis on all the ways cell phones might kill us.

Down with critical theory: Robert Pippin writes in defense of pleasure, enlightenment, and “naïve reading.”

Salman Rushdie is working on a memoir about the years he spent in hiding after the 1989 fatwa calling for his execution.