Inherent Vice

I wasn't going to mention Thomas Pynchon's latest book, a noir detective novel set in 1970 LA called Inherent Vice. Not because of any suspected problems with the book -- it sounds great, and I'm looking forward to reading it. Only because we previously enthused back on this very blog when Pynchon's last book, Against the Day, came out -- and I still haven't gotten around to actually reading it. Bad blogger. But this is too cool not to mention (via Andrew Jaffe) -- the good folks at Penguin Books have come out with a "trailer" for Pynchon's new book. In case you're wondering -- yes, that's Pynchon reading the voice-over. The man doesn't like having his picture taken, which is perfectly understandable, but there's no reason not to lend some authorial authority (as well as the actual text) to a video attached to one's work. I notice that Tom Levenson also did a trailer for Newton & the Counterfeiter. Wave of the future, I suppose.