My friends and I like to debate the future of books and reading. (For us, this has more appeal than politics or football.) There are the pro-e-readers in the group who are looking to carry half of their libraries in their smart phones and there are the anti e-readers who are happiest with the traditional paper pages in their hand. I enjoy the debates but until recently I believed the only difference between traditiona...
February is a hard month to love. Say all you want about the plucky groundhog, and rhapsodize on the romance of Cupid; remember the Chinese New Year, American Presidents and throw in a good word for Leap Year but the truth doesn’t change: February in the Northern Hemisphere is a difficult month to love. The Holiday Season disappeared ages ago and the pastel head of Spring is nowhere near to being seen on the hori...
Some books are a hit for a day; some dominate the bestseller lists for a season. One or two books can be considered touchstones for the decade but very few make it to true classic status. But there is a work of fiction that seems like it never leaves the public consciousness. In 150 years it has never been out of print, but it’s been adapted into almost two dozen films, five comic books, countless plays and elect...
The Winter creates strong readers. While Spring and Summer weather go well with “light” stories that demand little focus, winter blizzards are perfect for stories that hold the reader’s attention. When the drifts are piling up outside and the thermometer plummets, I want a story with structure and design, one that commands my attention through the long, dark days. For the like-minded readers who have ...
Letters used to be gifts, rare and wonderful things. They came, hand-addressed, through the mail and you were supposed to answer them promptly. (I know because I rarely did.) A good letter might remind you of the writer through the distinctive handwriting or the stationary he/she chose but the the act of writing letter was most important: it meant the reader was meant so much to the writer that he/she was invited into ...