1916-2009/1961-1968: Robert Strange McNamara, the Secretary of Defense under Kennedy and Johnson and the lead architect of the first half of the Vietnam War, died today at the age of 93. You could read for decades to understand his life and works (as McNamara himself apparently did in his later years), but you could begin with the lengthy obit in the Times today (by Legacy of Ashes author Tim Weiner), and then move to his self-searching memoir (criticized by many as not self-searching enough), In Retrospect, to the Pentagon Papers, which he commissioned and which pushed his turn against the war, to Deborah Shapley's out-of-print biography, Promise and Power, and to two influential accounts, David Halberstam's The Best and the Brightest, and Dereliction of Duty, the harshly critical military history by future general and Petraeus advisor H.R. McMaster.

Some like it hot: The Guardian (with some help from other writers) chooses their "50 best summer reads ever," chosen apparently for their sweltering and/or exotic settings. Coincidence or not, but my most memorable summer reads (defined as books that sucked me in thoroughly in a way only possible on vacation) took place about as far as you could get from the beaches where I read them: in Russia (Anna Karenina) and on Mount Everest (Into Thin Air).

Moving & shaking: High on our current Movers & Shakers list (it was even higher yesterday) of books seeing the largest jumps in Amazon sales rank is Albert Payson Terhune's Lad: A Dog. Why the bump for a book from 1919? Nicholas Kristof's July 4 Times column about "The Best Kids' Books Ever," which called Lad "simply the best book ever about a pet." (Another Kristof canine favorite that's moving and shaking into our top 200: Farley Mowat's The Dog Who Wouldn't Be.) But after the video clip I posted last week, I've very surprised Kristof didn't choose any Beverly Cleary books, even her own dog book, Ribsy.

--Tom

British actress Mollie Sugden, who played "Mrs. Slocombe" in the classic sitcom Are You Being Served, passed away on Wednesday at the age of 86. Her blue-haired character was one of the cornerstones of the Grace Brothers department store alongside John Inman's "Mr. Humphries."  Watch a clip from the show below or on YouTube, or you can read the Telegraph story. --David

Actor Harve Presnell died at the age of 75 yesterday, June 30, in California. Presnell was best known for starring on the Broadway stage in The Unsinkable Molly Brown opposite Tammy Grimes, then taking the same role in the 1964 film with Debbie Reynolds in the lead. Presnell also sang "They Call the Wind Maria" in the film version of Paint Your Wagon (and is often called the best thing about that movie). Presnell made a late-career resurgence with roles in Fargo (as William H. Macy's father-in-law), Saving Private Ryan, and other movies, and numerous appearances on television. Read the AP story --David

Oscar-winning actor Karl Malden died today, July 1, of natural causes at the age of 97. Born Mladen Sekulovich on March 22, 1912, the bulb-nose character actor was a star of both stage and screen. Raised in Gary, Indiana, Malden briefly attended a teacher's college, then enrolled in Chicago's Goodman Theatre Dramatic School. Following World War II-era service in the Army Air Force, Malden's career took off with the role of Mitch in the 1947 Broadway production of A Streetcar Named Desire, opposite Marlon Brando.

Malden won the Academy Award for best supporting actor in the 1951 film of Streetcar, and he was nominated again for On the Waterfront (also with Brando) in 1954. He later starred alongside Michael Douglas in the television series The Streets of San Francisco, and won an Emmy for the TV movie Fatal Vision. Well-known as a spokesman for American Express Travelers Cheques, Malden also served as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from 1989 to 1993. Malden had been married to Mona Greenberg since 1938. --Tom Keogh

Frey Goes All Sci-Fi
Author James Frey [remember A Million Little Pieces?] and an unnamed co-author (make of that what you will) have just sold the film rights to their unpublished YA science fiction novel I Am Number Four -- the first of a slated six-book series about a group of teen aliens who've escaped from their destroyed planet and are forced to hideout on Earth as well, non-alien teenagers.  Dreamworks and "Transformers" director Michael Bay reportedly coughed up six figures to seal the deal. [Hollywood Reporter]

New Michael Jackson Biography
Canwest reports that Montreal publisher, Transit Media, Inc. is stepping up the release of a new biography of the late pop-star titled Unmasked: The Final Years of Michael Jackson.  It was originally set to hit shelves during the weeks before Jackson's London concert tour, but now it will be released in mid-July. Author Ian Halperin is "frantically" writing a new fifty-page update for the book. However, he found the time to buzz his book and its eye-opening relevations in a recent on-line interview with a British tabloid. [Canwest News Service and Mail Online via PW Publisher's Lunch]

Shelf Awareness Turns Four
Happy Birthday wishes to the on-line newsletter Shelf Awareness which celebrates its fourth year of publishing a favorite daily newsletter eagerly read by publishers, book sellers and savvy readers. [Shelf Awareness]