At the time the Texas Book Festival booked Christopher Buckley, they couldn't have known how exquisite the timing would shake out to be. Buckley – who, by the way, is a leading conservative and son of William F. – was supposed to be in town to promote his new novel Supreme Courtship, a D.C. satire, but then The Daily Beast published on Oct. 10 his endorsement of Barack Obama ("Sorry, Dad, I'm Voting for Obama") and all hell broke loose. "What a kerfuffle all this has been," said the genial Buckley on Saturday in a conversation led by longtime family friend Steven Isenberg. The occasional mock hem-and-haw that they get back to promoting his book aside, Buckley gamely recounted the spiraling madness that led to his break from leading conservative magazine The National Review – a magazine that his father started and that Christopher maintains partial ownership of. In the wake of his Obama endorsement, which irked some NR readers so that they cancelled their subscriptions en masse, Buckley said he felt the "honorable to do was to offer to resign" – with an emphasis on offer. The offer, he smiled ruefully, "was briskly accepted," thus leading to the rather "awkward position of being fired by something I partly own."

City staff has recommended to city council a first-place choice for the architectural design of the new central library: Barnes Gromatzky Kosarek Architects and Taniguchi (both Austin firms) with Holzman Moss, a joint venture. The BGK team stressed a design process that would involve substantial public participation and community input. The agenda item posted follows. Over 400 public comments on the three finalist proposals had been received online as of 4 pm today. The online form remains up and comments can be made through 12 midnight tonight, at www.cityofaustin.org/library.

Chances are you already have your Halloween plans in order, but have you considered Saturday night yet? If not, the Texas Book Festival and the Austin Jewish Book Fair are here to help. TBF's annual event at the Continental Club is traditionally hipster central – well, book lovin' hipsters, at least. This year, the hot ticket item is the Paris Review's Philip Gourevitch conversation with novelist/former The Wire scripter Richard Price. (Speaking of, have you heard his Moth piece about racial profiling that was broadcast on This American Life a couple weeks ago? Based on voice alone, the guy's got a hell of a delivery.) If you want to avoid the logjam at the Continental Club, you might want to try the Dell Jewish Community Center (7300 Hart Ln.) instead. That's where Evan Handler (Harry from Sex and the City) will be holding court, as the official opening night guest of the Austin Jewish Book Fair. He'll be talking about It's Only Temporary: The Good News and the Bad News of Being Alive, his humorous memoir about battling leukemia in his mid-20s. Wait, you want more? Okay, how about Susan Orlean at the Alamo South Lamar? Orlean will be at the Texas Book Festival promoting her new children's book, but the Alamo event is strictly are R-rated, as she screens Adaptation, the Spike Jonze/Charlie Kaufman film loosely adapted from her nonfiction piece The Orchid Thief. Alamo programmer Lars Nilsen will conduct a Q&A with Orlean, in which she will presumably share how totally awesome it must be not only have Meryl Streep play you on the big screen, but to have Meryl Streep playing you tripping balls on orchid dust. Tickets for Orlean's event can be purchased here, along with Sunday's screening at the Ritz of Bonnie and Clyde (EW columnist Mark Harris, who wrote the fascinating critical history Pictures at a Revolution, had to drop out of the event due to a family emergency). The other two events are free, but we suspect they'll be crowded, so show up early. Oh, and happy book fest-ing.

You want something when you're in a foreign country: Eventually this is true. You want to go somewhere, you want to find someone, you want to purchase something. Hell, maybe you just want to use a toilet, even if it might be a toilet unlike any other you've seen in your life thus far. But, ah, damn, you can't make yourself understood. You don't speak the local language; the locals don't speak your language. What's a monoglot to do?

ICOON, which sounds like some provocative cyber-project from William Pope L., is a perfectbound booklet packed with precise line illustrations and full-color photos of people and things and situations. The idea is, you carry this mini-tome (written and gorgeously designed by Gosia Warrink) with you on your travels, and when language is a barrier, you simply locate an illo of what you're trying to communicate and then point it out to the person you're trying to talk to.

Brilliant? We think it might be called that, sure, especially as its precise and pleasing images are arranged in handy categories like "clothing," "hygiene," "health," "money," "food," "emotions," and so on. And, even if you're not planning on traveling beyond the borders of your own lingo's comfort zone anytime soon? It's quite a sweet little volume to peruse and share with others, and at $10 would make an excellent stocking stuffer for that holiday [points to image of Santa Claus] coming up.

In this week's issue, Arts Editor Robert Faires reviews Sarah Vowell's newest book, The Wordy Shipmates. Vowell, of course, first sprung to national attention as a contributor (later "consigliere") to Public Radio International’s This American Life, and she's one of several little-voices-in-our-ear culture commentators who have new books in print. In More Information Than You Require (Dutton Adult, $25), John Hodgman – also a TAL vet (but more famous as the lumpy-looking PC guy) – expands upon The Areas of My Expertise with another wild ride through made-up history, including bogus entries to a page-a-day calendar (as in Oct. 30, 1938, when Orson Welles supposedly followed up his The War of the Worlds panic-inducing broadcast with a radio adaptation of Whitman’s Leaves of Grass – “Listeners fall for it again: Across America, hysterical citizens run through the streets singing the body electric, and falling in love with teenage boys”). Next month, Ricky Gervais podcast superstar Karl Pilkington releases his third volume of simple-man, (semi-)wise-words musings in Karlology: What I’ve Learnt So Far (Dorling Kindersley, $20). And two regulars from NPR’s quiz show Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me hit the stands and hit the town at next month’s Texas Book Festival: Roy Blount Jr., of the baroquely worded Alphabet Juice: The Energies, Gists, and Spirits of Letters, Words, and Combinations Thereof; Their Roots, Bones, Innards, Piths, Pips, and Secret Parts, Tinctures, Tonics, and Essences; With Examples of Their Usage Foul and Savory (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25), and Wait Wait host Peter Sagal, who’s just reissued his The Book of Vice: Very Naughty Things (and How to Do Them) (Harvard Paperbacks, $13.95), will hold court on Saturday, Nov. 1, at 3:30pm in the Capitol’s Senate Chambers. Speaking of, check next week's issue for our advance coverage of the Texas Book Festival and the Austin Jewish Book Fair. It's a good time to love books and be in Austin, no?

Timing is a crucial factor in investing and with the world's economy struggling (to put it nicely) it's the perfect time for the legendary investor to share his principles on life and investing. The Snowball: Warren Buffet and the Business of Life is a 960-page tome documenting the Oracle of Omaha's life and business theories. Buffet's only request of biographer Alice Schroeder was, "Whenever my version of the story is different from someone else's … use the less flattering version." And unflattering much of it is. His obsession with business left him distant from those close to him, he doesn't believe in loaning money even to close relatives, and there's also a little adultery mixed in as well. Regardless of any personal shortcomings, he is nothing less than a brilliant businessman and shares his thoughts on the stock market, reinvesting savings, buying "cigar butts" (cheap and unwanted stocks that you can suck one last puff out of), investing in Berkshire Hathaway, and following your "Inner Scorecard" ("a toughness about financial decisions that had infused him for as long as anyone could remember"). The Snowball is a must-read for anyone even remotely interested in the investment world and its release comes not a day too soon. That is if anyone can still afford to buy it. Author Alice Schroeder will appear at the Texas Book Festival on Saturday, Nov. 1, 2:30pm, in Capitol Auditorium Room E1.004.

Jeff Pearlman wastes no time establishing the tone and situation of the Nineties Dallas Cowboys in his new book Boys Will Be Boys: The Glory Days and Party Nights of the Dallas Cowboys Dynasty (Harper Collins, $25.95). There is no introduction and no preface, because Pearlman has no use for such things. On the first paragraph of the first page, the author paints a picture of star wide receiver Michael Irvin stabbing teammate Everett McIver in the throat with a pair of silver scissors. Irvin had exhibited poor judgment before this, often acts involving cocaine, strippers, as well as attacking a referee during a charity basketball game, but on this occasion Pearlman shows us that McIver was getting a haircut and refused to give up his barber seat to Irvin. Remember, this is only the first page. Boys Will Be Boys is a straightforward, no-nonsense examination of the reclamation and fall of “America’s Team," nor does it need to be anything else. A franchise that was the beacon of the NFL in the Seventies had crumbled, and was being rebuilt with the kind of characters usually sequestered for Oliver Stone films. The antics of Irvin are just the tip of the iceberg. The ‘Boys replaced the only coach they had ever known, the legendary and Bible-fearing Tom Landry, with the egomaniacal Jimmy Johnson, whose interests included listening to Barbra Streisand, violent movies, white shag carpet, and the consumption of cold Heineken. Owner Jerry Jones eventually dumps Johnson for Johnson’s former college teammate and coaching rival Barry Switzer, who famously brought a handgun to the airport. These are just the coaches.

History buff and political essayist Sarah Vowell (The Partly Cloudy Patriot) has never been shy about her liberal leanings – in one of her most famous pieces, "The Nerd Voice," she wrote about weeping at W.'s first inauguration – and, honestly, one wishes the Democratic Party could put her on the payroll stat, such an engaging, ingratiating personality she is.

Case in point – last night's appearance on The Daily Show, in which she neatly cut down to size the Republican Party for repeatedly invoking the tragedy of 9/11 in one breath, and then dismissing New York – even the whole Eastern seaboard – as a liberal orgy of unpatriotism in the next:

"I feel like the East Coast was American enough for Al Qaeda, so it should be American enough for them."

The whole six-minute clip is embedded below – and it's good stuff, especially her impassioned defense of elitism – but if you're looking for more, then mark your calendar now – Vowell will be at Book People on Tuesday, Oct. 28, at 7pm promoting her new book The Wordy Shipmates.

The Frenchman looked a little uneasy. He had, he explained, come to Missoula for two reasons. The first, to explore the highways of the American West at Mach speeds (back in the ‘90s, Montana had no designated speed limit); the second, he said, was to meet the crime novelist James Crumley. We had a laugh as Frenchy related how he had sped into Wyoming without seeing the signs – out of Montana and into the arms of the waiting highway patrol. Then my pal Charley marched him down the block to meet Crumley. James Crumley, who knew a thing or two about living hard and driving fast, died on Wednesday, Sept. 17. He was 68. He was born in Three Rivers, south Texas, but lived for nearly four decades in Missoula, Montana. A one-time member of the University of Montana writing faculty, he was a familiar sight in the local bars, and offered kind words of advice to this and nearly every other writer who sought him out. Crumley was most famous for his crime novels, which received mixed critical reviews. Regardless, his books were celebrated by legions of fans for their visceral violence (always moral, rarely gratuitous) and Jim’s fine way with words. No remembrance would be complete without quoting the opening from his 1984 classic, The Last Good Kiss. That indelible first line: "When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon."