Boy, has New York columnist Kurt Andersen got a challenge for you! The multitalented author's epic 2007 novel Heyday contained a factual error or two, he says on his blog. Nothing to be alarmed about, don't fret! They've been corrected in December's paperback version. But Kurt is an audience participation kind of guy, so if, dear reader, you're clever enough to track down the slip-ups, you win a prize! Sadly, it's only another copy of the book you had to buy to take part in the Kurt Andersen Challenge '08 in the first place. But it'll be autographed! Yes, by Kurt Andersen. The lucky winner also gets the unabridged 22-disc audio version, poor thing. But hurry, because Andersen's only giving you until April to play. To be fair, we have absolutely no intention of poring over Heyday's 600-odd pages looking for a mis-typed date, so if you happen across the errors, let us know instead. We will reward you by never giving you the unabridged 22-disc audio version of anything, ever.

So Heyday, the new historical yarn from Kurt Andersen (the craggy-faced Tom Edison of satire!) took a bit of a pasting from the Times' Janet Maslin. It fared considerably better in that paper's ass-kissy Book Review. But how's it playing elsewhere? After the jump, an abundant yet random selection of recent reviews.

At the Times, a bit of the editorial judgment is rendered in advance of a book review based on which critic does the actual reviewing. If Michiko Kakutani takes on your novel, it's a clear signal that it's an Important Literary Effort, worthy of deep analysis and significant enough to merit a serious limning. And sometimes reviews are assigned to Janet Maslin. This was the case for Spy founder and New York mag columnist Kurt Andersen for Heyday, his new historical romp (Stevedores! Daguerreotypists! Fishmongers!). On the plus side, she grades on a much looser curve than Kakutani. So, how'd it do?