2008-10-06T14:19:33Z tag:voices.washingtonpost.com,2008:/shortstack/349 Copyright (c) 2008, WashingtonPost.Newsweek Interactive 2008-10-06T14:19:33Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-10-06:/shortstack2008/10/wheres_mark_twain_when_we_need.html

Monday has never been so hard. As we step into Nobel week, we Americans find ourselves scrambling to keep up in the most surprising areas. We knew that our economy, which used to be our ace, is in the tank. But the highest member of the Nobel Prize jury has now proclaimed us cultural Philistines. We're too insular and ignorant to produce great literature, says Horace Engdahl, whose name we'd never heard of before last...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Marie Arana 2008-10-03T16:14:41Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-10-03:/shortstack2008/10/bullseye_corporate_funding_for.html

Corporate funding for the arts is ubiquitous. Go to the opera or symphony in any U.S. city, and -- no matter how crummy the performance -- you'll find lots of proud corporate donors acknowledged in the program or announcements. Ditto for museum shows, edgy theatrical troupes, modern dance, ballet and public television. Good or bad, the bucks roll in. But not literature. Why not? Don't captains of industry crack books? I've been stewing over this...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Alan Cooperman 2008-10-01T21:19:09Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-10-02:/shortstack2008/10/five_books_that_are_stuck_on_m.html

Avid readers know all too well how easy it is to acquire books -- it's the letting go that's the difficult part. During the past 20 years, in which books have played a significant role in both my personal and professional lives, I've certainly had my fair share of them (and some might say several others' shares) in my library. Many were read and saved for posterity, others eventually, but still reluctantly, sent back out...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Rachel Hartigan Shea 2008-09-30T21:26:22Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-10-01:/shortstack2008/10/heating_up_the_stacks.html

Recently, my 17-year-old daughter and her friends went out to dinner and then over to Barnes & Noble. They bought a Harlequin romance novel by Jill Shalvis called Flashback and spent the rest of the night in our basement reading it aloud, laughing their heads off and eating ice cream. For me, it was a reminder that the country's Important Book Review Sections don't review the most popular books in the world: romance novels. I...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Ron Charles 2008-10-01T19:29:19Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-09-29:/shortstack2008/09/kids_do_read_after_all.html

Every year at the National Book Festival, I am struck with the same realization: Some kids are just mad about books. I mean, quavering voice mad, tears in eyes mad, please, oh, please, oh, please sign my book, you are my FAVORITE author mad. You expect this sort of adoration for movie stars, so it is especially gratifying -- no, thrilling -- to see it directed at children's book authors. I introduced several kids' authors...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Rachel Hartigan Shea 2008-09-29T13:30:21Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-09-29:/shortstack2008/09/on_the_coattails_of_sir_salman.html

There was something miraculous about the National Book Festival in Washington D.C. this past Saturday. Out on the Mall, that long grassy stretch between the U.S. Capitol and the monuments, we had expected torrential and unrelieved rain. The Weather Channel had told us so. The airports, we were also warned, would be affected -- planes backed up, authors stranded, unable to reach the capital. We at Book World assumed that readers, unwilling to brave the...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Marie Arana 2008-09-26T13:35:44Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-09-26:/shortstack2008/09/hot_hot_hot_the_financial_cris.html

Two topics seem to be very hot in the publishing industry right now: the financial crisis and Sarah Palin. Let's start with the financial crisis. It's been bad news for many people, but maybe not entirely bad for Alan Greenspan: His book, The Age of Turbulence, has popped back onto the Washington Post bestseller list this week, in paperback with a new chapter on the current subprime mortgage fallout. The crisis has also reportedly boosted...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Alan Cooperman 2008-09-25T11:49:09Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-09-25:/shortstack2008/09/five_novels_that_treat_people.html

My older daughter has cerebral palsy, and living with her over the past 19 years has given me a sensitive gag reflex for the way people with special needs are portrayed in Hollywood movies. Novelists -- not surprisingly -- handle these characters with considerably more depth and complexity. Here's a list of five novels for which I'm particularly grateful. 1. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, by David Wroblewski (2008). This enormous debut novel had already...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Ron Charles 2008-09-23T21:13:45Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-09-24:/shortstack2008/09/sorry_no_vacancies.html

You would think that any author who has labored so mightily as to bring forth a book ought to noticed by The Washington Post. Alas, that's impossible: Book World receives hundreds of books and bound galleys (the rough, junior versions of the ultimate products) per week, and we have a mere 16 pages to work with each Sunday, along with the five reviews we hand over to Style to run in their pages Monday through...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Ron Charles 2008-09-23T14:21:31Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-09-23:/shortstack2008/09/the_librarian_recession.html

Will our economy survive the current meltdown? Like soothsayers reading entrails, reporters and analysts cite all sorts of indicators -- job growth, retail sales, consumer confidence, etc., to predict whether we'll all be living like hobos this time next week. (Is it time to panic when the government's website on economic indicators is down?) But market watchers have been missing a crucial indicator: library cards. According to the American Library Association, "as Americans deal with...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Rachel Hartigan Shea 2008-09-22T16:52:17Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-09-22:/shortstack2008/09/how_did_books_get_oprah-ed_bef.html

Oprah's choice of David Wroblewski's "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle," announced just this past Friday, got me thinking about how mega-bestsellers used to be made before Oprah was Oprah. (Reality check: "Edgar Sawtelle" was already on most bestseller lists before Oprah turned her wand on it. Somehow, it's a lot more fun when she chooses a book out of total obscurity.) In the 20th century, at least in America, probably the most reliable good fairy...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Marie Arana 2008-09-19T14:37:04Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-09-19:/shortstack2008/09/books_on_green_paper.html

How much good could a do-gooder do, if a do-gooder did good with wood? That question -- in some form -- seems to have occurred to former President Bill Clinton when he was writing "Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World," a very very very well-meaning 2007 book urging all of us to acts of charity and responsibility toward each other and the environment. But, what about all the trees that had to...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Alan Cooperman 2008-09-17T20:56:16Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-09-18:/shortstack2008/09/five_books_whose_authorship_ha.html

Rule No. 1 in this parlor game is, forget about books whose authorship is clouded by the mists of time. Nothing written before 1500 counts here. What critically acclaimed or bestselling books do you think were not written by their purported authors? Did Ted Sorensen write Profiles in Courage? Does anyone doubt that Anne Desclos was the true author of the Story of O? How about Robert E. Howard's Conan stories: Is it barbaric to...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Alan Cooperman 2008-09-16T21:30:30Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-09-17:/shortstack2008/09/giving_it_away.html

The arrival of Philip Roth's new novel this week has got me thinking -- again -- about what reviewers should tell and what they should keep to themselves. Indignation doesn't turn on a shocking revelation the way his The Human Stain did, but on p. 54, the narrator reveals something about himself that puts the story in a completely different light. (No -- guess again -- he's not a woman.) Last week, I was talking...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Ron Charles 2008-09-16T20:15:33Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-09-16:/shortstack2008/09/awwwwww.html

You watched the video (if you haven't, click above); soon you'll be able to read the book. What publisher could resist the story of two guys (swingers, really, it was London in 1969) who bought a lion cub at Harrod's and raised him in their flat. When he got too big, they released him in Kenya. Would he remember them a year later? Of course he would. Now Broadway has paid over $100,000 to...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Rachel Hartigan Shea