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• Summertime, and the reading’s easy: a literary wish list.

  During all the years I’ve been a literary journalist (and really, who needs a number?), I’ve always resisted doing summer reading stories. Or beach book stories, or whatever. Why? Because I think people favor the same fare year round. For a full list of summer programs offered by the Florida [...]
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• The death of the book has been greatly exaggerated.

  Number of comments: 6
  Here I’ve worried myself sick over the inevitable end of printed books, and the rich literary culture that goes with them, as electronic books ride forth like the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse. But good news! Books will survive — as an element of interior design. Sitting on my couch [...]
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• Rowling plays coy with “Pottermore,” her new not-a-book project.

  Number of comments: 1
  While I was finally catching up with the most recent Harry Potter movie last night, unbeknownst to me J.K. Rowling had the webberverse in an absolute turmoil over a new website, thus proving once again that she is the Madonna-Gaga of contemporary literature. I mean, really, what’s the real talent [...]
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• Is life too short to read “Ulysses?” Or just short enough?

  Number of comments: 3
  Most people celebrating Bloomsday will  be at an Irish pub today, getting sensibly sloshed, rather than at a library slogging their way through Ulysses, the impenetrable modern classic novel that inspires this unofficial holiday. After all, even critics and some academics have turned against the novel. Dale Peck, self-appointed bad [...]
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• Salman Rushdie defects to television: “It’s taken the place of novels.”

  Number of comments: 6
  You can view this either as a) a disheartening sell out, or b) as an only slightly exaggerated statement of fact, but Rushdie has declared television the dominant narrative art form of the 21st century. For a full list of summer programs offered by the Florida Center for the Literary [...]
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• Beloved novel turned into a movie: Not a good sign when they flub the title.

  Number of comments: 2
  Lots of people know that television has become equal to the novel as a narrative art form — and now Salman Rushdie does, too! But first, let me declare my horror at the new title of the film version of his greatest novel, Midnight’s Children: It’s now called Winds of [...]
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• Books on TV: Product placement even an English teacher could approve.

  Number of comments: 10
  Last year I wrote about how the end of Lost would damage American literacy. The show was rife with literary references, and its characters, especially the dashing Sawyer/James Ford were frequently seen reading — get this — for pleasure. It turns out characters on other shows read, too. Apparently a [...]
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• Does a civilization that won’t support its libraries deserve to survive?

  Number of comments: 2
  The fundamental institution in any community is its library. You go to the symphony for music, the museum for art, the theater for drama. But at the library you can learn about all three, plus science, history, literature — the whole cultural enchilada. Six-week summer creative writing course begins June [...]
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• Surprise winner Tea Obreht has been cursed by the Orange Award.

  Number of comments: 3
  The world’s biggest literary prize for women has gone to a promising but still-unformed 25-year-old novelist for her first book, thereby probably ruining her forever. Tea Obreht, a Serbian-American, won for The Tiger’s Wife, a novel that attempts to confront the horrors of the Balkan civil war in a series [...]
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• Young Adult novels are good for nothing.

  Number of comments: 6
  I don’t know which I find more repugnant — the Wall Street Journal column attacking  tween books as “pathological,” or the response of authors (and, to be fair, readers) who claim YA novels about rape, incest, cutting and other lurid issues “save lives.” Both sides seem to be laboring under [...]
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