Russian short story writer Anton Chekhov has joined British novelist Jane Austen on the mash-up victims’ list. New Yorker editor Ben Greenman has published Celebrity Chekhov, taking Chekhov’s writings and adding celebrities. Not to give away too much, but actress Lindsay Lohan receives a flogging on the command of her reality star mother, Dina Lohan.

The Daily News explained how Greenman conceived this idea for “Tab Lit:” “Greenman determined that the best way to update Chekhov’s dramas of love, loss and pride was via our national obsession with fame. ‘Aren’t celebrities fictional characters anyway?’ he asks. Besides, he points out, celebrities face ‘similar pressures’ to Chekhov’s characters: Many of the stories deal with the divide between public and private.”

Earlier this year, Greenman released What He’s Poised To Do, a collection of fourteen short stories about love and letter-writing. Chekhov was renowned for his short stories and plays, especially his four major plays: The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters, and The Cherry Orchard. He also practiced medicine and maintained a busy career as a physician. According to the publication Letters of Anton Chekhov he once said, “Medicine is my lawful wife and literature is my mistress.”

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The video embedded above mashes up two popular but vastly different literary franchises: Chuck Palahniuk‘s Fight Club and the novels of Jane Austen.

Nevertheless, in this current environment of exclusive deals and eBook spats, maybe a little bit of rough and tumble is exactly what the publishing industry needs. Posted three days ago, the video has already logged more than 200,000 views–perhaps some much needed catharsis for frustrated professionals?

If you haven’t read Palahniuk or seen the movie, this trailer will give you a quick introduction to the violent book and film.

Today’s edition of our Booked feature includes monster mash-up writers and publishing optimists in two events located hundreds of miles apart.

Tonight Guy LeCharles Gonzalez, Ami Greko, and Ryan Chapman will host another 7x20x21 event, giving seven industry innovators a chance to show off their projects in quick slideshows. Click here to RSVP for the event at the Bowery Poetry Club in NYC.

If you live in Chicago, check out Quirk Book’s Monster Mash-Up Panel at the C2E2 festival on Friday. Here are more details: “Seth Grahame-Smith, Ben Winters, Steve Hockensmith, and Jason Rekulak: all the masterminds behind the Quirk Classics in one place, for the first time. Ever! If you’re going to C2E2, come by Room E351 on April 16 at 8PM. They will all be there to talk zombies, kraken, robots, more zombies, ninjas, and Jane Austen.”

Booked features the best events that come across our literary radar. Got any suggestions? Send them here. (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of The Dreadfuls image via)

Novelist Seth Grahame-Smith watched his entire life change last year when he wrote the bestselling monster mash-up Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Today on the Morning Media Menu, he talked about his new book and the mashup trend he helped create.

During the interview, he discussed his new book (Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter), the new MTV show he helped create, and the process of writing the screenplay for a Tim Burton-produced adaptation of the Lincoln mashup.

Press play on the embedded player below to listen or follow this link.

Here’s an excerpt: “Now the marketplace is flooded with mashups. I won’t name names, but if you go on Amazon and look at all the new mashups that are coming out, you can see that a lot of them are scraping the barrel. It’s seems like people are almost arbitrarily picking books out of hats. The other thing I would say is that if they are done well, almost respectfully–if you’re trying very hard to adhere to the themes and the style that you’re mashing-up–they do bring people into the tent.”

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Here are some publishing odds and ends for your mid-afternoon reading pleasure.

“Bookshelves are kind of a mosaic,” explains journalist and popular Twitter scribe Susan Orlean as she shows off her bookshelf in Stacked Up. “I have a little bit of a system that starts with the absurd and moves towards something a little bit grander.”

Sarah Palin‘s book tour stop brings Oprah Winfrey her highest ratings in two years.

Writing industry watchdog Victoria Strauss compares self-publishing options from West Bow Press and Harlequin Horizons.

What would happen if James Joyce and Jane Austen wrote comic strips?

The NY Times weighs a “conflict of interest question” at the National Book Awards.

Following the monstrous trend brought to life by bestseller success of “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies,” Del Rey Books just bought Porter Grand‘s “Little Women and Werewolves”–remixing the classic novel with a wolfish twist.

Editor-in-chief Betsy Mitchell acquired the title through Adam Chromy of Artists and Artisans. Ever since Quirk Books combined zombies and Jane Austen, we’ve seen more monster mash-up deals: “Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters” and “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.” If you want to read the good-old-fashioned “Little Women,” Project Gutenberg has a free eBook version.

Here’s a description of the forthcoming werewolf version: “In this retelling of Louisa May Alcott‘s classic, the beloved little women must keep not just the wolf, but the werewolves, from the door…and the kindly old gentlemen next door and his grandson may have some secrets to hide–or share with the March girls.”

Seven independently-published books topped Oprah Winfrey’s 25 Books of Summer list this year, bringing an indie spirit to a list traditionally dominated by major publishers.

According to MobyLives, only one indie book has made the Book Club during the 13 years the popular host started the club–picking W.W. Norton’s “House of Sand and Fog” by Andre Dubus III in 2000. Winfrey’s seal of approval virtually assures bestseller status for a title.

Here are a few of the indie summer picks, from the post: “‘Pride and Prejudice and Zombies,’ published by David Borgenicht‘s Philadelphia-based Quirk Books, is credited to Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith … The next independently published title on Oprah’s list is ‘The Peep Diaries: How We’re Learning to Love Watching Ourselves and Our Neighbors’ (City Lights Books), by Hal Niedzviecki.”

UPDATE: A previous version of this post included an erroneous fact about the book club picks.

“This is the first time I’ve seen Phoebe chew on a book,” says Laurie Viera Rigler. “Usually her tastes run to a pair of Crocs that belong to my husband. She doesn’t do any damage to the shoes (nor to the book); I think she simply delights in being able to chew on things. When we adopted her from the Humane Society a few years ago, she had been a stray and was so sick from a parasite that had rotted her teeth that she couldn’t even groom herself, let alone chew books. After eight teeth extractions and a good deal of antibiotics, she’s the healthiest, happiest kitty you can imagine. And the most affectionate. Wherever we are in the house is where she wants to be.”

Rigler adds that Phoebe Georgiana (named after Pride and Prejudice‘s Georgiana Darcy) loves to rest under the built-in bookcase next to her writing desk, using a power strip as a pillow. “Every so often, she awakens from her nap and demands that I stop feeling so self-important about my work and my deadlines and focus on what’s really important, like rubbing her tummy and giving her kisses.”

The Jane Austen biopic, BECOMING JANE, opens in limited release tomorrow and nationwide the week after. There are a slew of Austen-indebted novels just released on the market. What’s going on here, wonders USA TODAY? Of course they get plenty of answers as to why Jane Austen is hot, hot, hot almost 200 years after she died. “I think there’s an excellence to Jane Austen that people crave,” said Anne Hathaway, who plays young Austen in the movie. “Right now, I think it’s fair to say that mediocrity is being celebrated, and Austen will never stop being excellent. So it’s very reassuring.” There’s also the humor, the wit, and the proto-chick lit feel.

“People read Austen’s novels over and over again and just want to know what happens next,” said Deanna Parsi of Borders. New titles “ME AND MR. DARCY by Alexandra Potter and AUSTENLAND by Shannon Hale illustrate the timeless and universal appeal of Jane Austen. Her themes of society and love and relationships and family are still as relevant today as they were during her time.” Which makes BECOMING JANE look like a hit movie, though we’ll see when the box office returns come back….

The New York Times’ Alan Riding uses the upcoming publication of another previously undiscovered novel by Irene Nemirovsky to discuss just how much impact she’s had on readers worldwide – about 65 years after her death in Auschwitz. After the much-dissected success of SUITE FRANCAISE comes CHALEUR DU SANG (or FIRE IN THE BLOOD), which was discovered in handwritten format amidst archived papers in 2005. Originally conceived as early as 1937, Nemirovsky wrote the 150-page volume around the same time as she wrote the beginnings of SUITE FRANCAISE. Unlike the latter work, BLOOD (which Knopf will publish here on September 25) is more in the vein of Jane Austen and unconcerned with the effects of war.

Riding also touches on the newfound controversy accompanying the release of DAVID GOLDER, Nemirovsky’s second novel originally published in 1928. Critics have noted that the book portrays a wealthy and embittered Jewish immigrant to Paris, that in the 1930s Némirovsky wrote short stories for some right-wing journals and that in 1940 she and her family converted to Catholicism (although this did not save her or her husband). “Her supposed ‘self-hating’ has been more of an issue in the Anglo-Saxon world and Israel than here,” said Olivier Rubinstein, president of Editions Denoel. “When Denise [Epstein, Nemirovsky's surviving daughter] and I went to Israel for the publication of SUITE FRANCAISE in Hebrew, there were virulent debates about her supposed anti-Semitism. I am not trying to hide aspects that are disagreeable,” he went on, “but I think the question is more complex. I think it was less anti-Semitism than the disdain that bourgeois Jews like Nemirovsky had for immigrant shtetl Jews from Poland and Russia. And remember, we’re judging actions of 1938 with the post-Holocaust eyes of 2007.”

To which I say, right on, having picked up a copy of DAVID GOLDER earlier this week only to devour it in one sitting, agog at its depiction of the quest for wealth turned sickeningly awry. The novel deserves all the debate and discussion for it can sometimes be an uncomfortable read, but it is no less brilliant for such ambiguities. After all, Nemirovsky had no idea at the age of 26 what her fate would be a little more than a decade later. She was, in her own way, writing what she knew, doing so with care and humanity and compassion for her characters, no matter how odious they could be. I hope Vintage has plans to publish the book here as soon as possible.