Books: Gourmet Brooklynites with a sweet tooth are getting ringside seats to a saccharine smackdown as two competing cookbooks battle for a place on their shelves, their pantries and, more important, their (cream-filled) hearts. Comment.

Books: Park Slope photojournalist Scout Tufankjian spent two years on the bus with Barack Obama. Now she’s $32,000 in debt, but has a priceless book coming out next week. Comment.

Books: Simcha Weinstein has done it again. The hippest, coolest Hasidic rabbi in the city — he has his own Web site, even! — has come out with another book about pop culture. Comment.

Books: This week, author Jonathan Lethem kicked off the “Walt Whitman Writers Series” at St. Francis College in Brooklyn Heights. That’s a pretty lofty gig — but does today’s literary golden boy hold his own against the father of free verse? Find out in The Brooklyn Paper’s first ever borough literary smackdown! Comment.

Books: Author John Hodgman, whose new book, “More Information than You Require,” is out this week, sits down with The Brooklyn Paper to talk about being on TV, his Apple ads and his ascension to minor celebrity status. Comment.

Books: A Brooklyn Heights rabbi has obviously learned a lesson from his faith’s comedians — his new book about the economy (of all things!) certainly has great timing. Comment.

Books: A new cookbook is a tribute to the casserole. Comment.

Books: Author Jonathan Ames is back — this time with a racy, randy, raucous new graphic novel, “The Alcoholic.” Is it about him? What do you think? Comment.

Books: Rick Moody has a new book — plus a complete oral history of Brooklyn. Comments (1).

DUMBO: “Trainspotting” author Irvine Welsh to read from his new book, “Crime,” in DUMBO. Comment.

Books: Growing up, Liza Monroy traveled the globe with her diplomat mother, yet the author of the gripping coming-of-age story “Mexican High” now revels in the suburban feel of Prospect Heights. Comment.

Books: When art writers Deanna MacDonald and Geoff Smith set out to write their book, “100 Best paintings in New York,” they knew from the get-go that our borough would be a great place to visit. Comment.

Books: If you have a hard time telling the difference between the Brick Theater and BRICStudio, we’ve got the book for you. On April 28, the Brooklyn Arts Council released its “Directory of Brooklyn Arts Organizations,” a tell-all guide to 539 cultural institutions borough-wide, with a party at the Dweck Center. Comment.

Books: ”People are getting bored of rock shows,” Paul Maziar, author of the new book “What It Is: What It Is,” told GO Brooklyn. “I’m excited by the idea of having a show be someplace where different mediums are represented. A variety show is what I’ve envisioned.” Comment.

Books: Subway readers, prepare for a new accessory. Last week, “Brooklyn Was Mine,” a collection of essays by local literati — including Jonathan Lethem, Phillip Lopate, Emily Barton and Jennifer Egan — was released and, from what we can tell, it will soon replace paperback copies of “Everything is Illuminated” and rumpled Dawn Powell novels as prime F train literature. Comment.

Books: When author Jami Attenberg decided to write a "love letter" to Williamsburg, she didn't prattle on about its hipster denizens. She wrote about a little known segment of its population: It's "kept men." Comment.

Books: ”I don’t do comedy,” said Richard Zoglin, author of “Comedy at the Edge: How Stand-up in the 1970s Changed America.” “I can talk, but I don’t know how funny I am.” Comment.

Books: In the decade that she lived in Red Hook, Maureen McNeil collected plenty of stories about the neighborhood — it was the mid 1980s, after all — and on Saturday, April 12, she celebrated the release of “Red Hook Stories,” a book comprised of them. Comment.

Atlantic Yards: Twenty Brooklyn scribblers and opponents of the Atlantic Yards 16-skyscraper-and-arena development are putting their money where their pens are, not only contributing to a collection of essays and short stories about life in Brooklyn — but allowing the proceeds to benefit the mega-development’s biggest opponent. Comment.

Books: Lock up your history books! On Tuesday, May 6, author, Park Sloper and “Daily Show” contributor John Hodgman will read from his new book, “More Information Than You Require,” a collection of fake trivia, at a benefit for PS 107. Comment.

Books: While most foodies have been made aware of the inhumane techniques used to keep calves — which are turned into veal — and geese, whose livers are fattened up for foie gras, author Gene Baur exposes even more unappetizing ways our meat and dairy products come to the table in his new book, “Farm Sanctuary: Changing Hearts and Minds about Animals and Food.” Comment.

Books: Despite sipping Earl Grey tea, like one of the characters in her debut novel might do, Ann Herendeen isn’t your average romance novelist. “Phyllida and the Brotherhood of Philander,” Herendeen’s first novel, takes place in England in 1812, but the characters aren’t unrecognizable to Brooklynites today. Comment.

Books: Ever wondered what it is about Brooklyn that spawns so many talented authors or entices scribes to come from far and wide to set up their homes here? Sheepshead Bay native Bill Goldstein, a New York Times books editor, promises to get to the bottom of that question with his star-studded panel discussion, “Literary Brooklyn.” Comment.

Books: When you write a book called “The Shameless Carnivore,” you had better serve something meatier than cheese and crackers at the launch party. So when Greenpoint author Scott Gold celebrated the release of his book at the Brooklyn Brewery earlier this month, he served foie gras, duck and a variety of other specialty meats. Comment.

Books: Deadspin.com editor and Cobble Hill resident Will Leitch cheers on the fans in his new book, “God Save the Fan.” Comment.

Books: Get out your hardcovers and smudge-proof autograph pens, because the celebrity riddled Brooklyn Book Festival will show its spine on Sept. 14. Comment.

Books: Greenpoint author Anna Godbersen hits pay dirt with her Young Adult sensation “The Luxe,” which debuted at number six on the New York Times Children’s Books Best Seller list. The historical fiction novel puts “Gossip Girl”-type teenage antics against a Gilded Age backdrop.     Comment.

Books: While the country titters over the downward spirals of pop stars and mom-strosities, those scandals pale in comparison to the maelstrom of publicity that surrounded Brooklyn Heights preacher Henry Ward Beecher 130 years ago. In her new book, “Harriet and Isabella,” author Patricia O’Brien uses the scandal as the backdrop for her historical fiction. Comment.

Books: Perhaps you know him as the fez-wearing man on YouTube.com, smoking the ChronicCaster — a working bong-guitar lifted from the set of the film, “High Times Potluck.” Or maybe his name is familiar because of his stint as publisher of “High Times” magazine. Really, Mike Edison is a legend — if you’re to believe his spectacularly gripping memoir, “I Have Fun Everywhere I Go: Savage Tales of Pot, Porn, Punk Rock, Pro Wrestling, Talking Apes, Evil Bosses, Dirty Blues, American Heroes, and the Most Notorious Magazines in the World.” Comment.