I just came across this wonderful quote from Colum McCann, author of Let the Great World Spin.

Literature can stop my heart and execute
me for a moment, allow me to become
someone else.*

This is truly fiction’s greatest gift—the chance to crawl inside another being, poke around his consciousness, feel what it’s like to “be” that individual. Often it means changing age, gender, race, or nationality. No other medium does this so completely.

Fun Book Club Exercise
Is there any one particular fictional character you most enjoyed “being”?  Or a book that carried you most completely into the mind of its primary character?

Written by Cheryl Jones* for LitLovers.
We all know reading to youngsters is important. But aside from the pure joy we feel, it's easy to overlook why it's so important.

Take a look at these highlights from a study conducted by the Melbourne (Australia) Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research.

Reading to Young Children
------A Head Start in Life
--------—Ages 4 to 5—

♦ Reading to this age group has a significant positive effect later in life—on reading (language & literacy) and cognitive skills (numeracy & cognition).

♦ Children read to more frequently achieve higher scores on the [Australian] National Assessment Program for both Reading and Numeracy for ages 8 to 9.

♦These differences in reading and cognitive skills are not related to the child's family background or home environment.

Authored by: G. Kalb and J.C. van Ours, 2012

Print size matters. Based on work by Glenn Dorman, a child development specialist, young children’s eyes are still developing, which is why lettering in children's books is so large (small letter aren't helpful). Good rule of thumb: the younger the child, the bigger the letters.

Frequency matters, too. According to the Melbourne study (above), reading to children 3-5 days a week advances reading skills by six months. Reading 6-7 days a week can advance their skills by a full year!

One reason early reading is so beneficial is that it strengthens vocabulary and thinking skills—enabling children to ask questions when they're presented with difficult new material. The greater the vocabulary, the easier it is to ask for help.

Other studies over the years have shown that when children fall behind in the lower grades they often stay behind in the upper grades. Worse, they're at risk of dropping out later on.

A love of reading is a precious gift to give a child. And as every person who visits LitLovers knows, learning doesn't end with high school or college—which is why you happen to be here, reading this, right now.

Starting early with reading not only gives kids an extra boost when they're young—it turns into an advantage for life. It can be a key factor in keeping them engaged in school, as well as keeping them in school. And, importantly, it can inspire in them a life-long love of reading—just like you.

*Cheryl Jones is a blogger and a free-lance witer. Visit her blog here.

—By Kristi Spuhler for LitLovers—
In the last few years, we have all seen major changes in reading. With the advent of ebooks and ereaders, the materials that people read, where they read and how they read have been flipped upside-down. Gone are the days when people would peruse a quiet bookstore to find their next reading project - with a wifi connection and a series of clicks, readers have a virtual library at their fingertips.

Technology aside, there have even been developments in the way people read. Speed reading has grown in popularity among the college-age set for years and who can blame them? With such a massive amount of text that we’re all dying to pour over, we have to cut out time somewhere! Enter Spritz, a revolutionary new reading system developed by a team in Boston.

The Spritz claim-to-fame is its alleged ability to cut down the 80% of total reading time your eyes waste while moving from word to word. When reading, your eye searches out the ORP (optimal recognition point) in each word. Once the ORP has been located, you then begin processing the information. Repeat this process for every word on a page and you’ve spent quite a long time just moving your eyes!

With Spritz, the ORP in each word is highlighted for you. Each word in a sentence then flashes across a display screen with the ORP cast in the same area each time. This process completely removes your need to move your eyes and allows you to focus fully on the words in front of you. Where before it was necessary to focus on each word, now you can sit back, relax and let your text come to you.

Though the technology behind this new reading system is intriguing, we have to wonder how such a drastic change in reading would affect our audience of LitHounds. When the Kindle and the Nook first started making their appearance a few years back, there were rumblings that the publishing industry would be forever changed. Since that time, we’ve seen differences in the amounts of books that are published in the more traditional fashion, and a marked increase in the prevalence of self-publishing. Even though technology has taken a strong hold in literature, the popularity of the ink and paper book has endured - but can it survive another blow from a popular lit-gadget?

Though it’s easy to be skeptical, it may be best to give Spritz a try before passing judgement. To see what this new gadget is all about click here and then scroll over the blue link in the right upper corner of the page.

What do you think about text streaming - is it here to stay, or will it be gone in the blink of an eye? Leave us a comment below and tell us what you think!

Rachel Cusk, wants to reinvent the novel, at least according to the New York Times Book Review.* Just writing that makes me break into a sweat. Why do we have to reinvent the novel?

Okay, I get it. It's a bit like composers wondering where to take symphonic music after Beethoven. Ludwig pretty much said it all.

Poor Johannes Brahms: when folks heard his first symphony, they went, "OMG! It's Beethoven's 10th." Or so the story goes.

After 200+ years of the novel as art form, it's understandable that authors might want to try something different.

Perhaps you've noticed the trend toward SHIFTING POINTS OF VIEW, different characters taking turns at the helm…

. . . surely you've noticed the frequent use of SHIFTING TIME FRAMES, the lack of straightforward chronology…

. . . or maybe you've noticed the use of ALTERNATIVE TEXTS: news clips, diary entries, handwritten letters, scholarly papers, emails, even PowerPoint…

. . . how about the use of ALTERNATE REALITIES?

Sometimes it's hard to tell exactly where you are...or what character you're following—one of the criticisms leveled at Paul Auster's otherwise highly touted new book 4321. Other times, all this narrative disruption can make it hard to engage with the characters.

Yet we know people see and experience life differently. And that is precisely what the new fiction is trying to get at—to point out that human perception isn't cut in stone, that there is more than one way of seeing a particular event, and that memory is faulty.

Nonetheless, don't you miss the comfort of a single narrator? I do. I have a yen for that 19th-century style of writing in which someone steps onto your front porch, claims a seat, and tells you a grand story.

I hate being old-fashioned and curmudgeonly. But I'm weary of the fact that EVERY new book I pick up messes with point of view and chronology. Friends, I just had to get that off my chest.

* New York Times Book Review, January 29, 2017, cover review of Rachel Cusk's Transit.

By guest blogger, Kathy Aspden, author of Baklava, Biscotti, and an Irishman. Kathy is in the process of wrapping up her second novel.

Early in my writing career, one of my favorite mentors dropped this pearl of wisdom: Flawed characters are more loveable.

I’m sure most writers (along with most people) already knew this. I didn’t. I was always trying to give my protagonist superhuman qualities, such as perfect motives or having a righteous cause on his or her side. The concept of a person selfishly wanting their own way simply because it’s what they wanted seemed almost evil.

What a boat I was missing! This one gift of advice changed my life completely. It was a revelation. We don’t love people because they are perfect; we love them because we love them.

It opened a whole new world to me, both in my writing and in my life. I suddenly couldn’t wait to create the next flawed character; the trick being to infuse complicated, negative traits that also generated love, sympathy, and relatable feelings. My kind of puzzle. 

I began writing about characters who did horrible things and were still worthy of love. I watched them suffer the anguish of their sins, further ruining their lives when they couldn’t make peace with themselves. I fabricated players willing to overlook the craziest of transgressions for the sake of love; or to reconcile their own unforgivable pasts. I wrote my way into the epiphany that the early life of a parent, even when well hidden, factors into the future misery of a child.

With every story I learned more about myself. I had been living a half-life, trying to hide, dismiss or spin my shortcomings into the image of perfection. It was exhausting—and unnecessary.

I realized even my opinions hadn’t been bendable. If I stated a belief or truism, fourteen years ago, it was written in indelible ink—leaving me no emotional ability to say, “I’ve changed my mind!” I was being held hostage by my own beliefs to opinions and ideas that no longer served me.

My life was a two-dimensional picture and I had no idea how to get to the depth of it without taking something back—saying I was wrong, admitting I was imperfect.

Five screenplays, two novels, countless blogs and short stories later, I’m happy to say that perfect ship has sailed. Writing about the lives of others has put my own life into perspective. I have a more genuine relationship with my children—who know beyond a shadow of a doubt I’m not perfect. My mother and I have never been closer. I laugh with my husband about the mistakes we’ve made (relationship, child rearing, financial), experiencing little to no shame. And I have to admit my siblings are relieved to have witnessed my swan-dive off the pedestal of perfection. In truth it was more of a belly flop. I’ve never been happier.

Am I a mess? For sure. Does being a mess help my writing? You bet! It’s a two-way street. My characters are now as fond of meas I am of them. We share a newfound love of deeply flawed people and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Books on the Brain.com  Check out my guest column on one of the best book blogs on the Net. I talk about the fact that book clubs are saving the world for democracy!

Had you any idea how important you were?

—By Kristi Spuhler for LitLovers—
Looking for an easy way to share your love of literature? Then start a Little Free Library (LFL) right in your front yard!

At its most basic, a Little Free Library is a small, enclosed bookshelf on which you display your favorite titles. Neighbors can borrow and enjoy your books and eventually add their own to the box. Pick a book...leave a book.

Take Swapna Krishna who watched her own LFL project blossom. At first, she was delighted simply to see the books she shared disappear from the shelves. But the best part came when she discovered other books were being left!

So what starts out as a collection of personal favorites can quickly become one of the best places to find a new read!

Sound like fun? Then pay a visit LittleFreeLibrary.org where you can purchase one of the boxes. Or if you want a more personalized approach, download building plans to create your own unique box!

So now the question: what titles would you share? Leave us a comment and let us know!

I just finished My Mistress’s Sparrow is Dead (see our Reading Guide), a volume of 26 short love stories edited by Jeffrey Eugenides (author of Middlesex).  It’s been a long time since I sat down to read short stories, and I found it challenging.

As my friend Nan says, reading short stories is “like opening a jewel box.”  She’s right: stories are polished little gems…which is what makes them difficult. They’re written with economy—lacking the luxury of 100′s of pages for a more leisurely expansion of plot and character. Everything is compressed—precise—each word or idea contains significance, pointing to something beyond itself. Stories are packed with meaning.

They also tend to be dark, edgy, with more bite than longer fiction. Stories situate a character, an ordinary individual, in a moment of crisis—and within 2 to 20 pages, say, the author must resolve that crisis. Everything is intensified.

Finally, there’s the stop-and-go quality of a story collection, which as opposed to the long arc of a novel can be discomfiting. You get involved with the story and characters…only to have it end quickly. Then on to the next story—working to come up to speed again. It’s like establishing new friends, over and over, only to keep losing them.

But I found, reading through Eugenides volume, that the stories haunted me, out of all proportion to their length. And that’s the beauty of a short story.

For Book Clubs
Take a break from novels and try our LitCourses—each based on a single story.  The courses are short, fun, and packed with good information. You’ll find a study guide for each story—perfect to help with discussion. Take a look!

Back to Joshua Henkin—this is my 2nd post devoted to his terrific essay about book clubs. Henkin, author of Matrimony (now in paperback), speaks with book groups around the country. Here’s a question he raises:

Where are all the men? . . . My experience has been that women read fiction and men read biographies of civil war heroes. And women join book groups and men don’t. Yet those few co-ed book groups I’ve attended have been among the most interesting. And if, as seems to be the case, book groups have led to an increase in reading in a culture that otherwise is reading less and less, it would be nice to see more men get in on the act.
                                  Books on the Brain, April 29, 2008

Henkin is right: I read somewhere that 75-80% of book clubbers are women—why is that figure so lopsided? Why do women join book clubs and men don't? And for those few co-ed clubs to which Henkin refers, are the reading lists different from all-women clubs? (See my later post on this very subject—Do Real men join book clubs?—11/7/08.)

Questions for Book Clubs
1. For women’s clubs: do you ever consider inviting men to join your club?
2. How do you think adding men might change your book choices and discussions?
3. Same questions for all-men clubs, too. I know there are a few all-male clubs out there.

See my three other posts based on Joshua Henkin’s book club essay:
1. Book Clubs—smarter than critics?
2. I Laughed! I Cried! — how do we talk about books?
3. Echo Chambers—are we all reading the same books?

Years ago a friend came across a sex scene in Nelson DeMille’s Gold Coast—a couple playing a masquerade to juice up their sexlife. It was so offensive to her she tossed the book across the room—all of which she proudly announced to our book club. (The offending passage involves Lady Godiva...on a horse, of course...very funny. There's an even funnier pirate scene later on.)

What about you? Ever throw a book? I nearly did the other night. In my case, it had to do with the book’s heroine—dense, bratty (her own words turned on herself), and stubborn, in a very stupid way. It was all the more irritating because the book had started out with such promise.

What makes a book toss-worthy? What gets us so riled up that we want to throw it across the room? Is it anger … revulsion … disappointment … fear? And what sparks those emotions?

What's a toss-worthy reason?

• graphic sex or violence?
• offensive language?
• gross injustice?
• irritating characters?
• predictable plot lines?
• unrealistic coincidence?
• just plain bad writing?

But here's the thing...isn't it wonderful how literature evokes such passion? Think about it—books come to us as nothing more than tiny black squiggles on a flat white page…which we use to create meaning…which in turn inspires powerful responses. Astonishing…when you think about it.

Ah, Pinterest—all those lists and photos of the BEST PLACES TO READ...inside, outside, in cities around the world. But the novelty's wearing thin.

And that got us to thinking—perversely—about where you DON'T want to be caught with a book. So we put together our own list. This one is about . . .

THE 7 WORST PLACES TO READ

1 — Job Interview
Terrific resume. Great experience. Top-notch references. And there you sit, peering down at a book—just to prove you can multi-task. Gee, how could they not hire you?




2 — Lunar Landing Craft
You wanna screw this up? Your one big shot at making history? The world is watching, so put the book down—now—and land this baby.




3 — Parent-Teacher Conference
You think you're showing off your reading skills—which have rubbed off on your gifted kid. But while you sit there with your nose in a book, the teacher?...well, she thinks differently.




4 — Speeding Traffic
Eyes on the road; hands on the wheel. Do we really need to explain this one?




5 — Tax Audit
That's right, just keep on reading. Nonchalance implies innocence. He'll see right through you.




6 — Real Bedroom
This isn't on Pinterest—because this is LIFE. Picture yourself curling up here with a book and a Pinot. You can't, can you?




7 — Empire State Building
You could accidentally drop your book from the Observation Deck—you would see it accelerate at (32 ft. per sec.)², hitting the ground in 15 sec. at a terminal velocity of 50 mph. And THAT would crack the book's spine—which everyone knows is a crying shame.




So, dear reader, you tell us...what's YOUR worst place to read?

Favorite week of the year—the week AFTER Christmas. It's time to collapse … because we can. Finally.

I wonder how many feel the same kind of dread I do as we move into November: knowing that Christmas is getting closer… closer… closer…

And that means gift shopping, food shopping, cooking, baking, wrapping, cleaning up, washing up (bowl after pot after pan), making up guest beds, trudging up to the attic or digging through closets to drag out boxes of decorations, decorating, setting the table, more cooking, more baking, more cleaning, and more washing up.

And all this is ON TOP OF the regular tasks of our day-to-day lives—which, let's face it, are already plenty busy.

None ot this is to denigrate the deep joy the season brings, spiritually and communally—the candle-light services, the gorgeous music, and the connection with family and friends.

But when it's over—the gifts opened, the dishes done, the visitors come & gone—it's time to LIE BACK on a couch, put up those weary feet, pick up a BOOK AND READ.

So Merry (WEEK AFTER) Christmas, everyone—it's the best time of the year!

Do the threads of your life feel a little worn? Routines a little DULL? Do you ever dream about "livin' large"?

What about living in a different world altogether? Ever think about that? SURE you do.

All of which is why FANTASY is so addictive: it's a portal into a wild, mysterious otherworldliness—life lived as GRAND EPIC—exactly what most of our lives aren't.

Fantasy authors get it—it's why they're scooping up readers by the shovel-load. I'm talkin' about you, Leigh Bardugo.

But here's what really tickles me about fantasy books: the TITLES, their grammatical structure (oh yeah, and "Blood"). Like these—Children of Blood and Bone… or House of Earth and Blood. Here's the format:

(noun) - OF - (noun) - AND - (noun)

Other titles aren't quite so ramped-up; their STRUCTURE is simpler. Still, they manage to pack a punch—as in Shadow and Bone… or Siege and Storm. This is the format:

(noun) - AND - (noun)

So this got me to thinking—what would it take TO REWRITE some actual book titles, fitting them to the routines and irritants that make up our days? Here's my go:

A Song of Ice and Fire (George R.R. Martin)
A Bag of Ice and Cheetos

Children of Blood and Bone (Tomi Adeyemi)
Children of Blood and Boogers
Teens of Mess and Mayhem

Days of Blood and Starlight (Laini Taylor)
Days of Traffic and Potholes
Nights of Tossing and Turning

Song of Blood and Stone (L. Penelope)
Netflix of Blood and Gore

House of Earth and Blood (Sarah J. Maas)
House of Dust and Dirt
Sink of Pots and Pans

Eagles and Empire  (Alan Smale)
Pigeons and Poop

Shadow and Bone (Leigh Bardugo)  
Sinew and Flab

Siege and Storm (Leigh Bardugo)
Binge and Gorge

Ruin and Rising (Leigh Bardugo)
Bedhead and Biscotti

 Book groups could have fun with this, too. See what you come up.

A dear friend gave me one of those gifts that keep on giving...and giving... AND GIVING—a beautiful hand-knit scarf. I was thrilled with it, THRILLED! ...until suddenly I wasn't. So what happened? Well, I sent her a note about the mess she got us ALL into. I wanted to be gentle.

December 28, 2014

Dear Sue,

You ruined my life.

There was a time I could jump out of bed and make it downstairs in an easy 10, get my coffee, and get to WORK.

But NOW, Sue...I jump out of bed and my eyes land on The Scarf. YOUR scarf. And here's what happens...

OOH...I think, that would look good with my new sky-blue blouse (The Limited, 50% off...down to $24.95). So I try it on. No...WAIT...how about the other blouse, the BLUE-GREEN-GRAY one (same 50% off sale). Oh, yes!!!  But no. The collar's wrong.

WHOA! Lookie here...!!! I try on this smart blue (fleecy) vest. But the neck's too high. Okay maybe the beige crew-neck SWEATER: the scarf could dress it up a bit.

So, um...how should I wear this thing? Drape it in front and let it DANGLE? How 'bout a little tie in front? I COULD loop it first and then bring one end up over the shoulder. Or let's see...I could...

But wait, wait...look at this NECKLACE! It picks up the scarf's teal color! Hey, I should try that new turquoise jacket I got from CHICOS (online close-out for only $8.89 with FREE shipping). Yessss!

Nope—right color, wrong fabric. Okay, back to the beige sweater.

You see what's happening, Sue.

So I finally go downstairs to get to work. I've got 3 ponderous book reviews to get out this week.

But, Sue, I CAN'T CONCENTRATE. I'm having troub....

Oh, wait, I've got it! Back upstairs to try on that blue vest again (see above). Actually, it looks pretty good...with the NECKLACE (also above). OKAY...the vest and the necklace and the SCARF.

Back downstairs, Sue. Now to work.

Oops....... UPSTAIRS again. Just noticed there's red in the scarf—a smidgen—and I've got that new Macy's vest in a QUILTED RED pattern ... $17.69 because of a 40% sale, plus another 20% off with my new Macy's charge card, which I opened for that express purpose. Yep. the red vest looks good.


HOLD ON...!  Just thought of something else. This time it's a black micro-knit top I keep folded in my dresser (center drawer, 2nd row down). Well, damn...that looks good. Oh, and look at this bracelet (top row, 3rd drawer from the left)...the way it picks up the scarf's teal. Ooh, NICE!

Back downstairs. And on it goes.

Sue. Your scarf has put MILLIONS OF LIVES at risk. Three, four MILLION lives around the globe.

I think you know, Sue, that I own and operate LitLovers—a Massively Important website...for Book Lovers. ♥ They depend on our guidance. They look to US for their literary fulfillment...and we CANNOT allow distractions.

But speaking of SCARVES, Sue...think you could you whip me up something...in, say, a taupe? You know, start with a soft GRAY, work it into some BEIGE and then (avoiding brown) bleed it gradually into a lovely tan (but NOT a TAWNY tan...that doesn't do much for me—too much yellow. I'm thinking a sort of mushroomy tan)? That would be lovely.  Those colors would go well with a few THINGS I've got...?

It would fun to see what you could do.

Well, gotta get back to work...for now.

Love and kisses,
Molly

True story (pretty much).

Oops ... about to show my age. Remember A Woman of Substance by Barbara Taylor Bradford? Back in 1979 it was yuge, a bestselling book and later a TV movie.

Today it would be "A Girl of Substance." Talk about lost in translation.

What's the big deal? Well, if you have to ask, you're too young to have been around during the nascent Woman's Movement in the late-'60s and '70s.

You've seen Mad Men, right? It was like that, even into the 70s. I was there. To be called a "girl" was dismissive. "My girl can get you coffee." Or, "Nah. Don't bother. The girls can clean that up." Age didn't matter—21, 41, or 61—we were just girls, not women of substance.


Which is why I get all dithered-up by the use of "GIRL" in the dozens and dozens of recent BOOK TITLES—some 200. I know because I made a LIST. (Click button for a laugh!)


Next up? Publishers eager to cash in on this hot new trend are updating old titles with new, GIRLY-GIRL ones. CHECK OUT OUR NEXT POST to find out which of your favorite books have been given new titles. You'll howl.

 

Occasionally, I get emails from readers troubled by how hard of some of the older works are to read—18th and 19th century novels. I feel their pain.

Great works are rarely easy breezy reads—think Dostoevsky, Melville, Hawthorne, Eliot, Faulkner, James, Conrad. These aren't the authors we lug to the beach. They all write books that are challenging  for a host of reasons, not least of which is length. Their books also involve complex language and diction, arcane allusions and metaphors, and heady philosophical issues.

Even authors of a more recent vintage can be tough to tackle—Vladamir Nabokov, Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood, Don DeLillo, Thomas Pynchon—especially because of their post-modernist bent...which, among other things, means they constantly undercut their own meanings.

Here's the question: Should book clubs tackle the “great works” of literature?  Does doing so make a club more "legitimate"? If so, in whose eyes?

Or is this a non-issue, completely irrelevant to the purpose of our book clubs...and especially to the pleasure we derive from them? Still...it's interesting to ponder.

Questions for Book Clubs:

1. Is it enjoyable to read the "great works"?  Which ones? Are they challenging in a good way—or too challenging to enjoy? 
2. Does reading critically acclaimed books, contemporary or classic, make us "better people"... or just give us bragging rights?
3. If we choose not to read the "big" authors, are we missing out on something? If so...what?

Art imitating life ... imitating art. A new nonfiction book by three academics gives credence to The Help, Kathryn Stockett's novel of black domestics in white families during the South's Jim Crow era.

The real maids interviewed for The Maid Narratives encountered much the same treatment we all read about in the fictional version—separate entrances, toilet facilities, and dining areas.

Yet co-author Katherine van Wormer found much that surprised her: stories that were more positive than expected, a sense of forgiveness, and lack of bitterness.

A few deep bonds were forged between black maids and their white employers. "Love can cross over color-lines," says co-author Charletta Sudduth, whose own mother was a domestic and interviewed for the book:

I think that a lot of women—black and white women—shared a relationship that was genuine and true. They found ways to help each other, found ways to cry with each other, found ways to laugh.

Nonetheless, it was still a one-way racial street. As co-author van Wormer points out:

The whites thought of the maids as members of the family. The blacks didn’t see it that way. They had their own families, and the white people didn’t pay any attention to that.

The Maid Narratives was in research stage when The Help came out. Rather than feeling dismay at having been beaten to the punch, the book's authors saw only benefits. The huge publicity surrounding Stockett's best seller convinced many former maids to come forward and tell their own stories.

"For many of the women," says third co-author David Jackson, "this was the first time they could talk about it and begin to heal. It was therapeutic."

 

Overheard at a party:
"What do you do?" he asks.
"I'm a writer," she says.
"Would I have heard of you?"
So she tells him her name.
No recognition.
"I write about families, marriage, sex, and desire," she adds.
"Oh, wait,"he says. "Lemme get my wife—SHE READS THOSE KIND OF BOOKS."

True story as told by author Meg Wolitzer in a NY Times Book Review essay. Wolitzer is a fine author with a string of highly regarded books to her name.

Her beef isn't that the man didn't know her name (she's not a celebrity writer) it's that he's a stand-in for most male readers, who don't value novels about marriage and family.

But then neither do the literati, Wolitzer argues, who typically ignore "relationship books"—unless those books are written by men.

She points to the shower of FAME & ACCLAIM poured down on Jeffrey Eugenides for The Marriage Plot and Jonathan Franzen for both Corrections and Freedom—all books centered around love, marriage, and family. The two authors romp in the same territory as female authors, but they get all the kudos.

Remember the dust-up between Oprah and Jonathan Franzen? In 2001 Oprah selected Corrections as one of her book club picks, but Franzen demurred… with an unfortunate comment: if his book became An Oprah Selection, no man—NO MAN!!!—would touch it. Oprah withdrew her Seal of Approval (only to bestow it 10 years later for Franzen's 2011 novel, Freedom).

I've written about this subject before, and shame on me. I was TIRED of all those intimate portraits of troubled families—you're always waiting for the next SHOE TO DROP… then the next… and the next …and eveyone's miserable …all the time. Men seem to use a larger canvas, resulting in books with more heft.

I feel like a traitor to my sex… especially because Meg Wolitizer reminded us of female authors who explore some daring territory:

—Jennifer Egan (A Visit by the Goon Squad)
—Karen Russell (Swamplandia!)
—Tea Obreht (The Tiger's Wife). Let's also add…
—A.S. Byatt (everything)
—Hilary Mantel (Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies)
—Anne Patchett (State of Wonder)
—Zadie Smith (White Teeth)… And all that's just for starters.

Anyway, do read Meg Wolitizer's piece. It's thought provoking—with lots to talk about for any book group, especially a co-ed club.

A NY Times article (2/25/09) pondered whether a Liberal Arts education will be around much longer. Recent trends suggest maybe not. 

When I taught English, a number of students resented the time my class took from their studies in science & technology or business & finance. Those are the disciplines that would pay them good money . . . and pay off their tuition loans. But English? What good is it?

You can talk till you’re blue in the face—and I did—about the power of language, about the importance of clear thinking and coherent, persuasive writing—the things liberal arts teach us. 

After all, it was Bethany McClean, a former English major who first cracked the Enron scandal—because, as she said, she knew the right questions to ask.  There are lots of stories like that.

And I talked about how the humanities explore the important questions of life—

How does one lead a good life in a not-so-good world?
What does it mean to be human?  

But, honestly?  $20,000 a year is a lot money to spend on trying to figure out what your humanity’s about. 

So maybe the pursuit of liberal arts is a luxury we can no longer afford. That’s what more than a few in the ivory towers are suggesting.

Questions for Book Clubs

1. If college humanities courses fall off a cliff . . . will book clubs pick up the slack?  After all, to read and discuss books is to engage the very questions posed by humanities.
2. But then who said book clubs are supposed to solve society’s problems?  Isn’t our roll simply to enjoy reading and sharing ideas, large or small?

Jeeesh! Long time since I posted anything on this poor lonely blog. Why so long? Turns out, I’ve been reading...a lot.

Which brings up an intriguing comment by Jonathan Franzen in the Sunday New York Times Book Review (6/6/10).

Haven’t we all secretly sort of come to an agreement...that novels belong to the age of newspapers and are going the way of newspapers, only faster?

As an old English professor friend of mine likes to say, novels are a curious moral case, in that we feel guilty about not reading more of them but also guilty about doing something as frivolous as reading them…

Okay, so it’s tongue-and-cheek. Or not. Still, I’m wondering...

Questions for Book Clubs

1. Who’s “we”—as in “haven't we all secretly"? And why is it a secret agreement? Because nobody wants to talk about it?
2. Does he really think the novel (printed and digital...or just printed) is on its way out? If so, what will replace it: graphic novels...or the Internet...or video games?
3. Are novels "frivolous"? Has anyone told book clubs yet?
   
   

In case you you thought our previous post "Publishers Feelin' the Blues" was overstating the case, take another look. No, we're not crazy: there really is a BLUE THING going on in the publishing world.

(Click on cover  image to see  Reading Guide.)

It's weird...just sayin'. One of our readers commented that there must have been a sale on blue ink. Best explanation so far! Anyone else got an idea?

Now we know why we're hung up on reading. We talk about the guilty pleasures of the novel, of being sucked into a story, but it turns out we have an excuse. Lucky us—we're actually hard wired to respond to fiction.

Researchers have found our brain doesn't care whether we're reading about an experience—or actually engaged in it. Either way, the same neurological regions are stimulated.

If a character in a book walks across a room to close a window, the brain's motor cortex—the part that directs our physical action—lights up. It's as if we, not the character, got up out of our chair to close the window. More suprising, the motor cortex region associated with leg movement and another with arm movement both light up.

But wait! There's more! When scents or textures are described, our brain's olfactory and sensory regions kick in. So "her skin was smooth as silk" elicits a more powerful brain response than "she had lovely skin." High-five for metaphors.

We've long intuited that literature allows us to transcend our own skin (speaking of skin) and experience, from the inside out, how someone else views the world. And guess what...brain studies confirm it.

It turns out people who read are more empathetic, with a higher proclivity for understanding different viewpoints. This cause-and-effect relationship holds true even when taking into account that people who empathize might be more inclined to read than those who don't.

Be sure to read the fascinating article by Annie Murphy Paul: New York Times, March 12, 2012. It's good reading...will light up your brain!

—Kristi Spuhler for LitLovers—
We know—it can be difficult to find excitement in a story whose first sentence is a paragraph. (A Tale of Two Cities, anyone?) Just looking at a sentence like that can make us go cross-eyed! For this reason (among others,) younger readers are not as quick to devour antiquated works.

Enter sites like thug-notes.com (**Warning: The videos on this site contain some strong language**)

With modern lingo and a hip edginess, Dr. Sweets, (the moniker of comedian Greg Edwards,) takes well-known titles from the high school English classroom and breaks them down into bite-sized morsels fit to grab the attention of even the most attention-lacking reader. Distilling well-known titles down to their base elements, these video reviews break through the austere shell of many "classic" works and highlight the intrigue, violence, romance and excitement that many readers are seeking - but may not be able to find- in classic literature.

Using pop culture to interest audiences in classic stories isn’t a new idea. We highlighted a few examples of fine works that have been translated into movies in our last post (scroll down), and tv series like Wishbone filled roughly the same purpose to a younger audience. With the prevalence of vlogging* and social sharing sites, it seems that it was only a matter of time before literature would become a topic of conversation on these forums, too. As we should have suspected, the internet has allowed a number of unique interpretations to take hold.

What do you think about modernized video reviews of literature? Are they good for inspiring future LitHounds to explore the classics, or do these stylized versions detract from the original beauty of the work?

*video blog or video log

By Kristi Spuhler for LitLovers
Get excited Margaret Atwood fans, get very excited! The renowned author of The Handmaid’s Tale and The MaddAddam Trilogy is penning a new work.

All YOU have to do is wait around for 100 years to read it.

Yes, you read that correctly. Atwood's putting the finishing touches on what’s sure to be another amazing book, but an actual copy won’t be available for public eyes until 2114.

We understand this might sounds a little strange to you—why would an author spend so much time penning her next work only to hide it away for 100 years? The reason: Atwood is the first author commissioned to take part in the Future Library.

This astonishing public artwork began with the planting of a forest of 1,000 trees just outside Oslo, Norway, this past summer. In 100 years, this forest will be used to print a special anthology of never-before-seen books penned specifically for the project.

While the forest grows, the Future Library’s creator, Katie Paterson, along with a team of literary experts from the Future Library trust, will approach one writer each year and challenge him or her to “conceive and produce a work in the hopes of finding a receptive reader in an unknown future.”

After they’ve been written, the manuscripts will be locked away in a specially designed room in the Deichmanske public library.

The room, which will be lined with wood from the forest, will display the names of participating authors and the titles of their contributed works, but the manuscripts will remain unavailable until they are printed at the completion of the project.

Atwood herself seems to be positively reveling in the secrecy of the undertaking, saying to Guardian writers:

It's part of the contract you can't tell anybody what you're writing. I'm finding it very delicious, because I get to say to people like you [the Guardian], I'm not telling. But I will say that I've bought some special archival paper, which will not decay in its sealed box over 100 years.

Though it looks like we’ll never know what’s in store for the lucky readers who haven’t been born, yet, one things certain—they’re in for a literary treat.

We can’t wait to see what writers are chosen next to submit their works. Which authors would you like to see get involved in the project? So...how does it feel not being able to read your favorite writer’s newest work?

Do you have any idea how LUCKY we are that some people take on the burden of writing a novel? They're the ones willing to stare at a blank screen—then fill it with WORDS. And MORE words. Enough words for the likes of you and me to spend hours reading them.

Philip Roth made the news a year or so ago. He was in a New York cafe when the young barrista approached saying that he, too, hoped to write a lot of really good words one day.

Roth's response...in so many words: DON'T DO IT! Writing words is HELL! It will ruin your life!

I recently attended a panel discussion at Hachette book publishers in which the moderator opened with the Philip Roth incident. "Do you agree with Roth?" she asked the three author-panelists. "Is writing a brutal process?"

Joshua Ferris was one of the panelists,* and he writes excellent words. To Rise Again at a Decent Hour, his third novel, was nominated for the 2014 Man Booker Prize; his second, Then We Came to the End, won the 2008 PEN/Hemingway Award.

Ferris talked about the difficulty of starting a novel: making the tough decisions about who tells the story and how it should be structured. He talked about finally settling down to write the first 100 pages of To Rise Again. And then ...

And then ... he realized it DIDN'T WORK, none of it. So he tossed all 100 pages. The pain of that, he said, was "excruciating." It wasn't just the words, he noted, or even the effort. It was the time, all that time subtracted from his life, time that came to nothing.

So why DO it? What makes authors like Ferris write a second...and a third book? Or in Philip Roth's case 40? We can't know, of course, but I suspect it's a need to to create a separate reality, to articulate a world view, or simply to tell a good story.

Whatever it is, our world is a better place because of that mystifying compulsion. Authors grapple with words, and we're the beneficiaries. So how lucky is that?

For book clubs:
Have any members ever written or tried to write fiction—either a novel or short story. Or perhaps tackled a memoir...or written poetry? How difficult is writing?

---

* The other fiction panelists were Jean Hanff Korelitz (You Should Have Known, 2014) and Edan Lepucki (California, 2014). There was also a nonfiction panel, which included Maureen Corrigan (So We Read On, 2014), Barbara Ehrenriech (Living with a Wild God, 2014), and Sam Kean (The Tale of the Dueling Neursurgeons, 2014).

 

Boy! Girls are taking a hit these days—in the myriad books written and millions of readers propelling them to the top of the charts.

The girls I'm referring to are those fictional sociopaths, Amy (Gone Girl), Jodi (Silent Wife), Rachel (Girl on the Train), and most recently Lacey and Dex (Girls on Fire). *

Then there's Peggy Orenstein's nonfiction Girls & Sex about the troubling state of affairs as young women negotiate their way in the brave new world of hook-up sex.

Do notice, btw, the frequent use of "girl" in the titles. A "girl" is a young female lacking the stature—and substance—of a mature woman. Like what's up with that? (See later post on Girly Girl Titles.)

Marketers are surely taking a title cue from Steig Larsson's spectacularly successful "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" series. But Larsson's heroine, Lisbeth Salander, while outlandish, is a cut above the new "girls." Amy, Jodi, Rachel, and friends are downright ... frighteningly ... pathological.

Yet these books are cresting the bestseller charts...because we readers are scooping them up.

So what wave are these books riding? Something's up—some anxiety or unease within women, or about women, which these hugely popular books are playing into. What an interesting topic for book clubs to take up!

My 20-something daughter says it's about time: Males have long been cast as psychopaths, and women are just catching up—a sign of equity in her eyes. Well, maybe.

Except that these books are coming out fast and furiously—one after another—and hitting the charts in a HUGE way. It's puzzling. For some reason, we can't get enough of GIRLS GONE BAD. Why is that? (Also take a look at a previous post: Gone Girl Marriages—Creeping Us Out.)

* JUST RELEASED . . .
Add to our list the newest girls-gone-bad novel, The Girls by Emma Cline, based on the Charles Manson cult murders. These bad girls got the publishing world so worked up that author Cline walked away with a cool $2 MILLION. And this is her first book!

By Kristi Spuhler for LitLovers
“What happens next?” is the crucial question that leaves us drinking words off a page like we’ve just come out of a literary desert. But what do you do when you have brain bandwidth available and no free hands to hold your book?

You know the times we’re talking about—sitting in traffic, cleaning the house or running around the block. Any of these occasions would be perfect to bust out the earbuds and take a listen to an audiobook, but some of us pause before we hit the play button.

Homer himself (not Simpson...the other one...of The Odyssey, The Illiad) was an oral storyteller, so why is there such debate over the "literary merit" of plugging into an audiobook? At it’s deepest roots, the art of storytelling was simply telling a story to a group of people. Getting lost in a story on your iPod is simply the 21st Century version of sitting in an amphitheater.

We say get your fiction on anyway you can! To help you out, we’ve found the top five free audiobook streaming sites for the next time you’re idling on the highway. Simply click, turn it up and enjoy.

Librivox—An entirely volunteer curated project that donates recorded books to the public for free. The coolest part? Anyone can sign up to read and upload a book!


Books Should Be Free—Dedicated to presenting available literature in a visually appealing way, you can flip through images of available covers instead of scrolling through pages of hyperlinks.


Podiobooks—If you’re looking for something a little different than the usual public domain titles, Podiobooks has you covered. Budding authors donate their works to the site for free streaming, though you do have the option of making a donation to the site as well.


Storynory- Perfect for a long car ride with little ones, Storynory offers a wide array of both classic fairy tales and original stories all performed by professional actors.


ThoughtAudio - Browse through a list of all the best literature and conversations aimed at making you think. Though you may stream the content on your computer for free, you may download some of these works on MP3 files for a small fee if you choose.

If you find a book you might "tune in to" on one of these sites, let us know which one!

A book review this summer got me to thinking about the differences between male and female authors—whether men and women write differently...and whether book clubs prefer one gender over another.

Here’s Liesl Schillinger on Atmospheric Disturbances, a new work by Rivka Galchen:

It’s unusual—in fact, (why be coy?), it’s extremely rare—to come across a first novel by a woman writer . . . in which the heart and the brain vie for the role of protagonist, and the brain wins. While the voice and mood of the novel are masculine, clinical and objective . . . the book’s descriptions of colors, smells, clothing and bodies show feminine perception.

—New York Times Book Review, 7/13/08

My favorite part of that quote is “why be coy?”—an implicit acknowledgement that what follows is going to shake up some shibboleths. But do men and women write differently?

This is hard for me to acknowledge, but I think Schillinger is right. Works like Absurdistan, The Brief Wondrous LIfe of Oscar Wao, The Road, even The Corrections seem to display a distinct masculine sensibility. Reading them, I’m decidedly aware they were penned by a male. And there are books written by women that I feel are distinctly feminine: authors like Jody Picoult, Sue Miller, Sarah Gruen, Sarah Addison Allen. But that, I think, is a subject for another blog entirely.

Questions for Book Clubs

1. Do women clubs read “masculine” works like Absurdistan, Oscar Wao, or The Road? And do men read books that have Schillinger’s feminine perception—say Interpreter of Maladies or The Memory Keeper’s Daughter or The Secret Life of Bees?
2. Overall, do masculine works like The Road or The Corrections get taken more seriously than feminine works? Or does NONE of it matter.
   
   

Lately, I've been struck by something strange: my growing preference for male writers. I'm a little tired of Venus, which is hard for me to admit...what with being a girl.

But after reading a lot of female authors recently, I find myself bored with their focus on the intimate—the bird's eye view into relationships and family—waiting for the shoe to drop, the relationships to explode, tragedy to strike, and a general mess to be made of everything. I'm always worried how it all gets cleaned up.

I'm thinking of authors like Sue Miller, Jodi Picoult, Anne Tyler, Alice Hoffman, Jennifer Weiner, Marilynne Robinson. These are incredibly talented writers; they're wonderful. It's just that....

Men seem to write on a larger scale; even the personal is painted on a broader canvas, sometimes of near-epic proportions. I'm thinking of David Mitchell's The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet ... Jeffrey Eugenidies Middlesex...David Wroblewski's Edgar Sawtelle......Phlip Roth's The Human Stain or American Pastoral.

After finishing one of those novels, I feel as if I've been part of something grand, something vast and far beyond my day-to-day perception of life. There's a thrill in that.

But now, in the very act of putting pen to paper (or finger to key), I'm starting think of all the exceptions: Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall is of an era, and Louise Erdrich's Plague of Doves is mythic. Both Richard Russo and Chris Bohjalian write with penetrating intimacy. So...well, there you go. I've proven nothing.

Still, the issue recalls an earlier post in which I asked the same question: Do men and women write differently? The question at the time was spurred by Liesl Schillinger, who wrote in a New York Times review of Domestic Disturbances:

While the voice and mood of the novel are masculine, clinical and objective . . . the book’s descriptions of colors, smells, clothing and bodies show feminine perception.

So...if Liesl can say something like that...maybe I'm not nuts.

Tim Bissel is a grown man—a writer and professor of writing—who's obsessed with videogames. In fact, he considers them a budding art form.

In his new book, Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter, Bissel says the games are “as gripping as any fiction" he's come across”—and, get this—that Grand Theft Auto IV is ”the most colossal creative achievement of the last 25 years.” That's quite a claim.

What excites Bissel, really excites him, is the interactive nature of games, the idea of...

turning narrative into an active experience,
something which film [and literature] is
unable to do in the same way.

So it got me to thinking about the history of the novel and film, both of which were once were considered upstarts—having to prove their artistic worth to skeptics. Right now, Bissel isn’t impressed with the “literary” skills of the video game designers. But given time, won’t those skills—dialog and characterization—develop just as they did in fiction and film?

And consider this—literary fiction is the only art form that allows us to slip the boundaries of our own skin and enter another’s. When we identify with literary characters, we think and feel as they do…we BECOME those characters for the duration of the book. But we’re still passive participants, only along for the ride.

Now think what it might be like, say 10-15 years from now, to enter into a book or film’s action … to particpate actively … to affect its outcome. How will that work? I don’t know, but … I’m getting out my daughter’s old joypad to practice!

Questions for Book Clubs
Have fun—consider what a book club might be like 20 years from now. Will we all come with our little laptop video games? Will we discuss what actions each took…and how we changed the direction of the plot?

See Part 2 of this post.

In my last post, I raised the issue of whether video games might someday inspire book-club-like-groups. Here’s a follow-up…

Jeff, my nephew showed up at our house (after I’d written the first post) with “Rain,” an adult mystery video game. As I watched him play, I found myself caught up in the story—unable to pull my eyes away from the screen, let alone leave the room to fix dinner.

The graphics were good, the storyline engaging, and the interactive nature allowed Jeff to make decisions on the part of his characters. And different decisions led to different outcomes.

What was surprising was how invested I was in the characters—yet I wasn’t the one holding the joystick!  Jeff was the one holding the joystick—and he clearly cared about his people. After all, they could act only through him.

It's a bit like writing and reading a novel at the same time. Playing these games, you're both author and reader of the same work. How cool is that?

Prediction? I bet 10-15 years from now people will be meeting to talk about video games—just as we do about books. Given time, the plots and characters will grow more sophisticated and complex—with rich possibilties for discussion. We’ll talk about why we made the choices we did, why we developed the characters we did … and how outcomes varied from member to member.  

Exciting but worrisome. One wonders about the future of BOOKS—stats on the number of folks who read them is increasingly dire. So one asks (well, I do) as wonderful as technology is, is it leading us backwards?

Books hit the box office in a big way last year. Just in case you were visiting another planet—here's a list of notable books found on the screen in 2013. Don't worry, though: if you were clueless about a few...so were we!

Books-to-Movies in 2013
Click on titles for Reading Guides

	Austenland Book by Shannon Hale Movie with Keri Russell Jane, a single, modern day New Yorker, is in search of her own Mr. Darcy. What else to do but sign up at a two week fantasy resort for Austen obsessed women!
	Beautiful Creatures Book by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl Movie with Alden Ehrenreich and Alice Englert In a few months, when Lena turns 16, she will be "claimed" by the Light or the Dark. Along with her boyfriend Ethan, she must fight off supernatural powers.
	The Book Thief Book by Markus Zusak Movie with Sophie Nelisse, Emily Watson Coming-of-age story story in Nazi Germany. Leisel learns to read, and is driven to collect stolen books and a set of peculiar friends, including a Jewish refugee.
	Catching Fire Book by Suzanne Collins Movie with Jennifer Lawrence Katniss won the Hunger Games and should feel secure in her family's safety. But she becomes the face of a popular rebellion—and now the capitol wants revenge.
	City of Bones Book by Cassandra Clare Movie with Lilly Collins Teenager Clary Fray witnesses a murder, but the body disappears into thin air. Then she meets Jace and is suddenly pulled into the world of the Shadow Hunters.
	Enders Game Book by Orson Scott Card Movie with Harrison Ford Government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers to fight a hostile alien race. One future soldier is brilliant young Andrew "Ender" Wiggin.
	The Great Gatsby Book by F. Scott Fitzgerald Movie with Leonardo DiCaprio Baz Lurhmann's take on the great Great Gatsby, an American classic that highlights our penchant to remake ourselves. Upper class shinanigans lead to tragedy.
	The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Book by J.R.R. Tolkien Movie with Ian McKellan Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf, and the Dwarves continue their quest to reclaim their homeland, from Smaug. Bilbo Baggins is in possession of a mysterious and magical ring.
	Labor Day Book by Joyce Maynard Movie with Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin Henry Wheeler's life is changed forever when he and his emotionally fragile mother show kindness to a stranger with a terrible secret. A story of love, and treachery.
	The Reluctant Fundamentalist Book by Mohsin Hamid Movie with Riz Ahmed and Kate Hudson Changez is living an immigrant’s dream of America. Princeton, Wall Street, and beautiful Eric. But 9/11 changes everything as he discovers more fundamental allegiances.
	Safe Haven Book by Nicholas Sparks Movie with Julianne Hough and Josh Duhame A young woman with a mysterious past lands in Southport, North Carolina where her bond with a widower forces her to confront the dark secret that haunts her.
	Silver Linings Playbook Book by Matthew Quick Movie with Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence A young woman with a mysterious past lands in Southport, North Carolina where her bond with a widower forces her to confront the dark secret that haunts her.
	12 Years a Slave Book by Solomon Northup Movie with Chiwetel Ejiofor The memoir of a black man born free in New York state but kidnapped, sold into slavery and kept in bondage for 12 years in Louisiana before the American Civil War.
	Under the Dome Book by Stephen King TV series (Season 1) An invisible and mysterious force field descends upon a small town, trapping residents inside, cut off from the rest of civilization. What is the dome and why is it there?

*We snuck Silver Linings in from late December 2012.

Let us know if you've got a favorite...or about one that disappointed. Are any of the films better than their books? (Most of us think it's the other way around...but not always.) Did any film inspire you to read the book afterward?

Next up—Books-to-Movies scheculed for 2014. Stay tuned!

Our last post highlighted a sizeable list of 2013 films inspired by some of our favorite books. If the following list is any indication, it looks like we’ll be hitting the library before we go to the theaters again this year, too.

Books-to-Movies in 2014
Click on titles for Reading Guides

	Monuments Men (January) Book by Robert M. Edsel Movie with George Clooney, Matt Damon, et al. A group of American art specialists come together during World War II to recover world masterpieces stolen by the Nazis.
	Winter's Tale  (February) Book by Mark Helprin Movie with Colin Farrell, Jessica Brown Findlay Peter Lake, a thief, falls in love with a woman as she dies in his arms. After discovering his ability to revive the dead, he is determined to save her.
	Serena  (April) Book by Ron Nash Movie with Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper When Serena Pemberton discovers she cannot bear children, the life that she has built with her husband, George, begins to unravel.
	Child 44  (June) Book by Tom Rob Smith Movie with Tom Hardy, Joel Kinnaman Investigating a series of child murders in Stalin era Soviet Russia, Leo Demidov must battle the odds to expose a threat the State won’t admit exists.
	The Fault in Our Stars  (June) Book by John Greene Movie with Shailene Woodley Hazel and Gus are an inseparable pair of teens who meet in the most unlikely of places—a cancer support group.
	Under the Dome *  (June 2014) Book by Stephen King TV series (Season 2) An invisible and mysterious force field descends upon a small town, trapping residents inside, cut off from the rest of civilization. What is the dome and why is it there?
	The Giver  (August) Book by Lois Lowry Movie with Meryl Streep Living in a seemingly perfect community, a young boy is chosen to learn from an elder about the true pain and pleasure of the "real" world.
	Outlander (Summer) Book by Diana Galbaldan TV series (Season 1) Claire Randall, a wartime nurse, lives a double life: a husband in 1945 and, by inadvertently touching an ancient stone, a lover in 1743.
	This Is Where I Leave You  (September) Book by Jonathan Tropper Movie with Jason Bateman In order to honor their father’s final wish, a non-practicing Jewish family must sit Shivah together for one week.
	Gone Girl  (October) Book by Giullian Flynn Movie with Rosamund Pike, Ben Affleck It doesn't take long for Nick to become a suspect when his wife Amy goes missing. But are things always what they seem?
	The Hobbit (Part 3)  (December) Book J.R.R. Tolkien Movie with Benedict Cumberbatch, Evangeline Lilly In this third installment, the company of Thorin have reached Smaug’s cave, but can the group reclaim the dwarven treasure?
	Before I Go to Sleep (TBA) Book by S.J. Watson Movie with Nicole Kidman, Colin Firth As the result of a tragic accident in her past, Chrissie Lucas awakes everyday with no memories. One day, she discovers new truths that force her to question who she can trust.
	Wild  (TBA) Book by Cheryl Strayed Movie with Reese Witherspoon In order to cope with a series of catastrophic life events, Cheryl embarks on a 1,100 mile trek on the Pacific Crest Trail.

* Carry-over from 2013.

We know we've missed a few, so let us know which ones. And tell us which ones you can't wait to see.

We’re all bibliolatrous when it comes to books—otherwise, you wouldn’t be reading this.  The question is, how do you love your books—not how much, but in what manner do you love them? For Valentine’s Day, I think it appropriate for us to consider the ways. 

You're a Courtly Lover if you . . .

♥ Can't bear the thought of using an e-reader (a Kindle)
♥ Use bookmarks; never leave an open book face down
♥ Never write on or dog-ear the pages
♥ Hate having to part with old books, even ones you dislike
♥ Always remove the dust jacket while reading
♥ Never read while eating
♥ Never read in the tub or at the beach (especially with a
   hardcover)
♥ Adore the smell and sound of opening a brand new book.

 For you ”a book’s physical self is sacrosanct . . . its form inseparable from its content.”  Your duty as a Platonic lover “is a noble but doomed attempt to conserve forever the state of perfect chastity in which the book left the bookseller.”

You're a Carnal Lover if you . . .

♥ Love using an e-reader (a Kindle)
♥ Leave the book splayed—even knowing it damages the spine
♥ Write, circle underline, or dog-ear the pages
♥ Pass on old books with eagerness
♥ Use the dust jacket’s flap as a bookmark
♥ Love to read while you eat, bathe, or go to the beach
♥ Use books for doorjambs, paperweights, drink coasters, or
   shims
♥ Love used books because others have enjoyed what you’re
   enjoying

For you  ”a book’s words are holy, but the paper, cloth, cardboard, glue, thread, and ink that contain them are merely vessels.”  You feel no remorse in treating them wantonly because “hard use is a not a sign of disrespect but of intimacy.”

Here are the two extremes.  Thanks to Anne Fadiman’s delightful book, Confessions of a Common Reader,  for these two distinctions.  Fadiman talks about her father, who when traveling would rip out pages he’d already read and toss them into the trash—it lightened his load—obviously a carnal lover.  At the other end of the spectrum is a friend of hers who buys two books, one to read . . . and the other to preserve in its pristine state on the bookshelf—courtly to the max.

A fun book club discussion:  which type of lover are you?

If you’re a Malcolm Gladwell fan, then you’re in luck!  We have Readers Guides—with DISCUSSION QUESTIONS—for all 4 of Malcolm Gladwell’s books.  Read and discuss any of the books at your book club!

The Tipping Point    |    Blink    |    Outliers    |   What the Dog Saw

By Kristi Spuhler for LitLovers.
OK, we admit it—we were with Harry Potter from beginning to end (all seven volumes), we cried with Hazel Grace as the cancer progressed, and we followed Katniss through her long ordeal. There's something about a well-written Young Adult (YA) novel that grabs us, no matter what age.

That's why we were so surprised when Ruth Graham (Fear Not Tomorrow, God Is Already There) popped up declaring the YA genre inappropriate for adults. Graham claims certain lines shouldn't be crossed when it comes to the books adults choose to love.

Read whatever you want. But you should feel embarrassed when what you're reading was written for children.     —Ruth Graham

Should we really "feel embarrassed" for picking up a well-written book—even one directed at a younger audience? Think of The Book Thief, When You Reach Me, Persepolis, or The Diary of Anne Frank, for heaven's sake. And what about To Kill a Mockingbird? (The last two aren't strictly classified as YA, but a case can be made...)

Graham has her reasons: she believes YA fiction lacks the literary complexity of theme, plot, or character that reflects the adult experience.

[YA] books consistently indulge in the kind of endings that teenagers want to see, but which adult readers ought to reject as far too simple.... These endings are emblematic of the fact that the emotional and moral ambiguity of adult fiction—of the real world—is nowhere in evidence in YA fiction.

As you can imagine, the article has generated a pronounced divide between literary purists and writers and readers of YA books.

In defense of her craft, YA writer Kathleen Hale (No One Else Can Have You) rebutted Graham in a hilarious parody of her own genre. She confronts Graham "outside a graveyard before nightfall."

"Why did you say that about YA?” I asked, as tears streamed down my face like rain.

“Because it’s true!” she hissed. And I saw in the moonlight that her anger made her beautiful. This was before the war, when the oceans still had water, and the moon was still visible in the sky.

“YA is formulaic, worthless dreck,” she said, transforming into a vampire.

You get the gist. It's very funny. But Hale is serious when she retorts (while turning into a werewolf, of course) that Graham's complaint is hardly new. Nathaniel Hawthorne, in 1855, disparaged the "damned mob of scribbling women" and the books they wrote as "trash." Fifty years ago, Flannery O'Conner and others complained that Harper Lee's now classic novel—written for a youthful audience—shouldn't be handled by adult readers.

This is not to say that ALL reading materials are created equal. But surely finding pleasure in books with happy endings, romance, high emotion, or one-dimensional characters shouldn't be an embarrassment. If so, we might have to toss the likes of Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters (Caaaa-theeee!), Charles Dickens and plenty others off our oh-so-adult reading lists.

What do you think?  Should an adult reader shy away from YA books? Is the genre a lesser art form? What about your book club—has it taken on any YA books? Let us know.
* Photo by L on Flicker.

Lisa Lucas is the head of the National Book Foundation, and one of her goals is to make reading fun again.

Now, if you're reading this—which means you're on LitLovers and thus a devoted reader, you're going, "Wha...???" YOU think reading is already fun.

But some people don't, hard as it is to imagine—and we all KNOW people like that.

My husband, really bright guy (math-&-physics type bright), doesn't read much. While long rows of numbers are beautiful things to him, dense blocks of text are daunting.

Another reason—and you've heard this one—"I don't have time." Well, here's an idea from Lucas on that:

If you read for an hour every single day, you’re reading seven hours a week, which is enough to bang through a decent amount of material if you do that...for 52 weeks.

Other comments about why people don't enjoying reading:

♦ Some people have trouble quieting their minds. They can't sit still; they're the doers & fixers.

♦ I think I lack the imagination, am too impatient, and don't want to THINK about my entertainment.

♦ TV, films, music, and the digital world provide easier methods of entertainment.

♦ Reading takes too much work and takes too long. We have to convert symbols into words and then process the result.

♦ Reading fiction is a waste of useful time.

♦ Inveterate non-readers probably had to read Moby-Dick in the 7th grade and never got over it.

From Quora

That last one—suffering through Moby-Dickin 7th grade—oh, boy! I remember that. And this is where Lisa Lucas believes she might make a difference.

The way we TALK ABOUT LITERATURE CAN STOP CONVERSATION even before it starts. If we can reframe how we talk about connecting readers with literature, and how we want to market that concept of NOT MAKING IT FEEL IT'S SOME KIND OF CHORE, I think we’ll find change.

From New York Times

Well said, Lisa Lucas. Changing minds, and habits, is hard work but a laudable goal. Best of luck to all of you at the National Book Foundation.

Click on images

Have you noticed the number of absent mothers at the heart of new novels lately? So far I count SEVEN—in the first quarter of 2017 alone—surely there are more.

1/10  The Sleepwalker
1/31 I Liked My Life
1/ 7 Swimming Lessons
1/ 7 Universal Harvester
3/ 7 Rabbit Cake
3/ 7 Close Enough to Touch
3/28 Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley

Then there are last year's books, as well as those over the past several years—most famously The Goldfinch and Where'd You Go, Bernadette. We can even go back to the early-aughts.

The missing mothers in these stories TAKE OFF…
or wander off…
or die…
or are killed…
or kill themselves.
Sometimes it happens before the novel opens, sometimes within its pages.

Whenever or however they disappear, fictional moms leave heartbreak and loneliness in their wake—a grief so profound it shapes a character's motivations and actions throughout the novel.

It is an age-old literary trope, which authors use to set their protagonists on the path of the Hero's Journey—a quest for self-discovery, belonging, and self-acceptance.

One of the best missing mother novels? Dickens' David Copperfield—the mother of all missing mother stories.

By the way...I've written on a this subject a number of years ago. See Lost Mothers—Why authors bump off moms.

In a previous blog post, we asked whether bookstores will go the way of dinosaurs? The question is even more pressing for libraries, which face a brave new digital world...on top of state and local budget cuts.

First things first: how will libraries adapt to the growing e-book age? That question plagues both libraries and publishers as the trend to digital books shoots upward. More and more of us are turning to Kindles, Nooks, and tablets—we find a book and download it NOW! It feels so good.

But what happens when you download an e-book from the library?  Do you have to stand in a virtual line for two weeks till it's your turn to download their single copy? If that's the case, bye-bye library...it's a straight shot to Amazon!

Libraries don't own e-books the same way they own book-books. They license them from publishers through distributors.  So...how many times are libraries allowed by publishers to lend the same e-book (simultaneously and over time)? Only once...20 times...100...1,000 times?

Fortunately, libraries and publishers are working on a business model that will sustain them both. They may settle on a subscription fee...or a flat fee per e-book, but whatever the ultimate solution, it should allow both to survive and thrive. At least in the near term.

The long-term is murkier: are bricks & mortar libraries even necessary? If books are virtual, existing in some amorphous computing cloud, will we need never-ending rows of bookshelves? If research is done by computers, what role will reference librarians play? We can deal with those questions in another blog post. But for now, let's say that very smart people are putting their heads together on this issue, too.

The final question—budget cuts. I've got a four-letter response to that...but it's unprintable.

Here's the four-word response—change our tax system.

If we're worried about dumbing down the American mind, something's very wrong with our priorities when we reduce library funding. The world may be turning digital, but for now—and for some time in the future—libraries serve as the communal repository of knowledge...available to all comers.

See the follow-up articles: Whither Go Libraries in the Digital Age—Part 2 and Part 3.

Today's open letter from the American Library Association could have been a warning shot across the bow of U.S. publishers. But that's presuming the ALA could actually make good on its warning...which it can't. Libraries don't even have slingshots to use against publishing Goliaths.

Still, it's a smart move—using an open letter to turn the spotlight on three of the country's (world's) largest publishers, who refuse to sell ebooks to libraries. The ALA's letter puts it this way...

Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, and Penguin have been denying access to their ebooks for our nation’s 112,000 libraries and roughly 169 million public library users.... The Glass Castle [ebook is] not available in libraries because libraries cannot purchase [it] at any price. Today’s teens also will not find the digital copy of Judy Blume’s seminal Forever, nor today’s blockbuster Hunger Games series —September 24, 2012

Not all publishers refuse to sell to libraries, as the ALA points out. However, without those three major players, ...

If our libraries’ digital bookshelves mirrored the New York Times fiction bestseller list, we would be missing half of our collection any given week due to these publishers’ policies. [ALA's emphasis.]

This week, however, publishers and the ALA are meeting to try to iron out their differences—a hopeful sign, given that talks back in January of this year (2012) reached a stalemate...or worse. Penguin pulled out of library ebook sales altogether.

Random House, on the other hand, stuck around...but nearly tripled its prices to libraries, and Hachette's will more than double. HarperCollins limits libraries to lending its e-books only 26 times. This is according to Publishers Weekly.

But it's not like publishers are the bad guys. They are businesses...and must make money to survive. So stay tuned for another exciting installment in our suspense series—Libraries in the Digital Age.

See both Whither Go Libraries in the Digital Age articles—Part 1 and Part 3

I've written twice* before about what's to become of libraries in the digital age. A widely emailed New York Times article should give heart to all of us who have worried about their fate. Here's the gist...

A Pew Survey found recently that the percentage of those who believe book borrowing is a "very important" library service (80%) is about the same as those who believe computer access is a "very important" library service (77%). As it happens, libraries have been meeting the challenge of the digital age all along:

In the past generation, public libraries have reinvented themselves to become technology hubs in order to help their communities access information in all its new form.
                               —Kathryn Zickuhr, Pew Research Center

It's possible to have too much information. Back in the dark ages, when the web was in its infancy, a friend of mine quipped that it needed a good librarian to get the stuff organized. This was a few years before Google. Today, the web clocks in at nearly 15 billion web pages, and it's still growing at a mind-boggling rate. Google or no Google, we have digital overload.

All of which makes an "information manager" more important than ever—specialists who know how to search, locate, categorize, and vet information. And guess who does that really, really well? Librarians.

What's more, librarians share their skills. Every major library now offers its patrons—not just access to digital equipment—but courses in how to use it...and how to maneuver the vast information galaxy.

So 100 years from now, even if we find their shelves bereft of the printed book, libraries and librarians will be more important than ever—as communal centers of knowledge. We'll still need them—so we better damn well make sure they're around! A warning to us all: we need to keep a close watch on our municipal budgets.

* See Whither Go Libraries in the Digital Age—Part 1 and Part 2.

By Kristi Spuhler for LitLovers
These days you never know what creature you might come face-to-face with in your local library. Many of us, it turns out, are meeting up with the furry canine variety. Woof.

Therapy Dog programs are popping up all over the place, aimed at encouraging struggling readers to find comfort—and pleasure—in reading aloud. The dogs provide a helping paw.

Snuggling up next to a canine buddy while reading is meant to help students build confidence in reading skills and generate enthusiasm rather than anxiety for library time.

One volunteer group, BARK, offers 20-minute sessions once a week for young readers to relax and practice. During a session, a child picks out a book and, after a few friendly pats for the furry pal, is all set to begin the story. It’s that simple.

A dog offers a friendly ear and no judgement. When students stumble over words in front of peers and teachers, it's intimidating. But dogs take the pressure off, letting young readers focus on the story and on improving their skills.

The results are remarkable. In a study conducted by Tufts University, second graders who read aloud to a canine companion over the summer months retained their reading skills more effectively than those paired with a human buddy.

Another study by UC Davis in 2010, according to BARK, suggests that kids in reading-to-dog programs improve their reading skills by at least 12% when compared to children not involved in these programs. A fuzzy ear and an encouraging nuzzle may be just what a struggling youngster needs!

Have any of you been involved in a program like this? Leave us a comment—we'd sure love to hear about it!

There are so many—they're the unsung heroes—WOMEN who made astonishing contributions to science and to the Allied war efforts.

For half a century or longer, their lights were hidden under bushels—but not by their own doing.

Their accomplishments went unrecognized, were dismissed, in some cases, ridiculed … and for one reason: they were FEMALE.

Thankfully, today, many are finally getting the recognition they deserved yet were so long denied. Their achievements have been heralded through a profusion of recent books. It's time.

Let's start in 2016 with Hidden Figures, Margot Lee Shetterly's book about the black female mathematicians at NASA during the early rocket age: they struggled in the face of both sexism AND racism—a doubly high barrier.

Though Hidden Figures is hardly the first book about unrecognized women, it's perhaps the most famous. In addition to reaching bestseller status, the book also became a BLOCKBUSTER FILM—earning close to a quarter of a BILLION world-wide.

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This January Marie Benedict published The Only Woman in the Room, a novelistic treatment of the famous Hollywood film star, Hedy Lamarr. Lamarr led a double life: she was also a crack scientist who invented a radio-guided torpedo system.

Although dismissed by the military during World War II, Lamarr's invention later played a role in developing GPS and cell phones. Hedy's Folly, a nonfiction work on the same subject, was published by Richard Rhodes in 2011.

Also out this January is Larry Loftis' nonfiction account of Odette Samson, a female British spy dropped into Nazi territory—Code Name: Lise.

AND get this! Pam Jenoff has just released a FICTIONAL treatment of real life female British spies … dropped into Nazi territory—The Lost Girls of Paris.

THIS just in, a late entry: April 9, 2019, saw the release of Sonia Purnell's A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II.

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2017 saw a number of books about female breakthroughs in male domains. CODE-BREAKING proved a big topic that year: strangely, TWO nonfiction works were both devoted to one woman in particular—Elizebeth Smith Friedman.

Elizebeth, a groundbreaking cryptologist, founded along with her husband the modern science of cryptology prior to and during WWII. After the war William Friedman went on to head up NSA's cryptology unit—and even had a building named in his honor. It took decades for Elizebeth's name to be added to the plaque—even though some considered her the BETTER coder.

Check out these two nonfiction works on Elizebeth Smith Friedman:
    • The Woman Who Smashed Codes by Jason Fagone
    • A Life in Code by G. Stuart Smith

In the VERY same year (we're still in 2017), came Code Girls by Liza Mundy. Again, during the war years, the Army and Navy recruited women from around the country to learn code-breaking. They moved to Washington to take up the challenge, and only now, after years of secrecy, are we learning of their impressive contribution.

Also, in 2017, Jennifer Chiaverini came out with The Enchantress of Numbers, a fictional telling of Ada Lovelace, daughter of poet Lord Byron. More than a century passed before Lovelace was acknowledged as the developer of computer language (i.e., code). That's right, she was essentially the FIRST computer programmer—and it was the 19th century!

Finally, in 2017, moving away from math and science, Chuck O'Brien released Fly Girls, a nonfiction account of female aviators during the 1920s and '30s. The women, talented flyers in their own right, had to fight in order to compete against men in popular air races. In the face of ridicule, they managed to beat their male counterparts … a lot.

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This is hardly an exhaustive list, but I'll stop here. There are many more books championing unsung female achievements; these are just the ones that came to mind.

So wouldn't it be a great idea to spend an ENTIRE BOOK CLUB YEAR reading about these remarkable women … and the many others I've left out?

By Kathy Aspden, Author *
Here’s the thing I love about screenwriting – it’s about using the fewest words to create the largest picture.

There’s a wonderful economy in the language of films. You’re given two hours at best – which translates into 120 pages of script, one page per minute.

I’ve had table readings of my scripts – no action included – and have been surprised to find that it really is one minute per page.

So here’s your mission:  Write a scene that doesn’t include the character’s thoughts, desires and complex histories, but somehow conveys a character’s thoughts, desires and complex histories. It’s like a puzzle.

Add to that the fact that somebody important who’s reading your script does not want you to direct them. It sounds confusing, doesn’t it? It is.

---

RENNIE
I was wrong. You can tear up my contract and keep the money. I’ll take my chances on the outside.

---

This is a line from my screenplay, A PERFECT WORLD – a dystopic society in 2046 where America is bankrupt from taking care of the sick.

All illness has been traced to HPAS - Hybrid Procreation Autoimmune Syndrome – caused by the cross-pollination of people breeding outside their race of origin: The American Melting Pot. The government has decided it’s time to fix the problem before humanity is too sick to survive.

What if medicine suddenly became illegal and the sick were encouraged to die while America cultivated a new race?

Now picture my dilemma as the screenwriter. Exclamation points are frowned upon. Italics aren’t allowed. Underlined words are not encouraged unless absolutely necessary. Using all caps (ala Christian Gray style) is a complete no-no.

And yet my character, Rennie, is a woman in a government run clinic, who is thirteen-weeks pregnant with a genetically viable child, produced through a government sanctioned union, and she wants out.

She wants out at the top of her lungs. She wants out in spite of the fact that she has signed a contract. She wants out even though she knows that medical care outside of the facility has been deemed illegal.

SHE WANTS OUT!!

But it’s not my call as a writer to do the director’s job (or so they say). So I write the words and hope he/she gets it. Or more likely, I hope the twelve-year-old he/she intern assistant to the producer gets it.

It’s all good, though, as long as YOU get it.


* Kathy Aspden is the author of Baklava, Biscotti, and an Irishman, as well as a book reviewer for LitLovers.

Cool photo...could be right out of Anne Fadiman's Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader—a terrific collection of essays about a lifetime spent in the pursuit of books: reading, writing, and collecting them. (The author is best known for The Spirit Catches You, You Fall Down, 1997.)

Here's what happened: Having sublet her apartment, Fadiman returns home from a lengthy trip. It turns out her subleasers are two design-oriented guys who thought they'd do her a favor and spiff the place up a bit.

So what did they do? They rearranged her bookshelves. Nothing practical mind you, like genre, subject, or author name...no-no-no. That would be PROSE-AY-ICK. They reorganized the books by—you guessed it—COLOR. And Fadiman? Amused...and horrified.

Well, I've got some pretty spiffy bookshelves myself, built by Victorians 120 years ago. Here's what mine look like.

A beautiful mess. Books are crammed in topsy-turvy and arranged willy-nilly, with no claim to the niceties of decor or organization. It's all DVDs, old Disney videos, kids crayons, cookbooks and wine glasses (off to the left), along side Shakespeare (my grandfather's 1920s set).

Bookshelves are deeply personal things. This lovely mess has meaning: it reflects a sort of "what-you-see-is what-you-get" approach to our lives. More importantly, the mess contains a good bit of family history, giving us pleasure just to look at it.

So how personal are your bookshelves—what do they say about you? Finally (and we've talked about this before), how much longer will bookshelves grace our homes? What will we lose when everything is digitalized. And, yes, I ♥ my Kindle.