Photo: Donna Ward/2011 Getty Images

Salman Rushdie is working on a Showtime series, and he tells Haaretz that to prepare for the new gig, he’s been gobbling up other cable dramas. Among the shows he’s liked are The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Dexter, and Deadwood, but not everything gets an unequivocal rave from Rushdie, who goes on to say, “There was a series called Game of Thrones which was very popular here in the United States, a post-Tolkien kind of thing. It was garbage, yet very addictive garbage — because there’s lots of violence, all the women take their clothes off all the time, and it’s kind of fun. In the end, it’s well-produced trash, but there’s room for that, too.” Even the most sacred television drama of all-time came in for unimpressed scrutiny: “Everybody loves The Wire and I think it’s okay, but in the end it’s just a police series,” Rushdie says. Fightin’ words! [Haaretz]