Bookplanet: Jonathan Lethem gets genius McArthur Award

Read about who got McArthur genius grants here. You can't apply for it; you have to rely on your friends to nominate you, but who are the nominators? One of them must be a friend of a certain author in Brooklyn. Other writers must be asking themselves: why him and not me, goddammit? You get $100,000 a year for five years, no strings attached. More than you can make from writing books. Congrats, Jonathan. Now you can go and live in China for five years and write a novel about them.