Behind Raymond Chandler's dull-looking job as a bookkeeper, a Los Angeles bus tour firm has uncovered a lurid tale of disputed debts, attempted murder, suicide, and adulterated milk. Carolyn Kellogg, on whose LA Times blog I saw the story, adds valuable biographical background.

– "I learned that folks don't usually kill themselves in the middle of composing the suicide note." A meditation on Saul Bellow's peculiar style of despair, for what would have been his 94th birthday.

– Typically, when asked to reply to a critical letter in a highbrow journal, writers offer a display of petulant superiority. But John Lanchester, faced with an embarrassing slip in his article on the financial crisis, provides a single sentence that manages to 'fess up, crack a joke – and – plug his next book. Hats off.

– On the subject of the financial crisis, there's an entire economic cycle in the Amazon "People who bought this also bought ..." selection for Why The Real Estate Boom Will Not Bust (2006). Apparently, they bought Why it's Different This Time, followed by Dow 36,000, followed by Dow 40,000, followed by Dow 100,000, followed by Sell Now! The main title makes an amusing list of the least prescient financial titles; I found it via the political blogger Matthew Yglesias, who can also offer you a cookbook written by 1920s US congressmen.

– Why is it that so many big books come out on a Tuesday?

– People not to attack in the subtitle of your book, number ... shall we say one?