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Someone wise once told us that character growth is important. If characters don’t learn from their actions, then they’re boring. The trend of sequels to successful chicklit novels highlights this truism: the Shopaholic remains in eternal debt and Bridget Jones… Well, Bridget hasn’t exactly returned to the novel, but she’s returned. Actually, she’s right back […]

Rather that boring our readers with our continuing obsession with royalties and such, we point you to Tod Goldberg’s blog (which we’ve discovered cannot be read until we’ve consumed new episodes of Battlestar Galactica, just in case he gets all analytical with it). Today, Tod considers a recent, well, decision by the Irish government to […]

Carl Jung is dead. That everyone can agree on that point is a major milestone. Jung’s biographer and Jung’s heirs have been warring over a new look at the man. Traditionally, biographies are written, reviewed, and consigned to shelves after being read by those who find themselves interested. Additional readings may happen if another biographer […]

Though we can sometimes be rough on reviewers, we do understand that they have tough jobs. Sure it’s reading, but it’s reading for work. Suddenly the choice is less what do I want to read, and more what do I have to read. Also, it is a well-known* fact that authors don’t say things nearly […]

If one needs a good sense of our priorities, consider this: we read MediaBistro’s interview with editors Megan Lynch and Sean McDonald…and our big takeaway was that we really need to get the new George Saunders novella. Don’t blame the editors — they were as interesting and candid as possible — but we have a […]

We’ve had the link to Dan Wickett’s latest interview with literary journal editors in the queue for almost a week because, as it turns out, there is an award for laziest blogger ever, and we’re in the running. However, our sense of public service has won over our desire for glory — and we know […]

Our bookclub has supplemented* our collective reading list with something the husband likes to call the “Ayn Rand/L. Ron Hubbard List”. Ostensibly, this is a list of classic titles as chosen by readers. In reality, there was a small war between the Objectivists and the Scientologists, and the top ten slots are weighted heavily in […]