Clippings 15: more good news than bad

I’ll start with the bad news.  More losses have hit the publishing industry—and those of us who care about it.  The Washington Post has killed its stand-alone, Sunday-issued Book World.  And the editor-in-chief, executive editor, and children’s review editor at Publishers Weekly have all been laid off.  I know times are tough for everybody, but I am greatly disturbed by what these decisions indicate about our overall priorities.  I, for one, intend to keep writing, buying, reading, and reviewing books!

So on to the good news:

 The American Academy of Poetry has released the poster for this year’s National Poetry Month.  The design features a line from T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”  Also, in case you need a little inspiration for annual romance day tomorrow, they have also posted a nice collection of love poems.

In honor of John Updike’s recent death, the folks at Books & Culture have dug up this review of his 1996 novel, In the Beauty of the Lilies.  The reviewer (the byline is inexplicably missing) is novelist Larry Woiwode, whose out-of-print Beyond the Bedroom Wall I have been trying to get my hands on.  I enjoy reading old reviews that point out good stuff I missed when it first came out (in this case, because I was taking 26 credit hours a semester during my senior year of college!).  It sounds intriguing.  Have any of you read it?

Finally, the folks at DailyLit, which I have mentioned here several times, are launching their own Big Read program, starting with a piece inspired by the upcoming Oscars:  F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.”  Sign up here to get it in 11 installments.  I did, so let’s plan to discuss it here in the near future!

13. February 2009 by Mindy
Categories: Clippings, Resources, Your turn | 2 comments

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