Fifty Shades of Misery
No one is confusing Fifty Shades of Grey for great literature, but the Twilight fanfic certainly has proven itself a (particularly tiresome) pop culture phenomenon since its 2011 publication. The...
View ArticleInformation is Not Wisdom
What a scholar one might be if one knew well only five or six books. – Gustave Flaubert Hardcore lovers of traditional books complain that ebooks aren’t as aesthetically satisfying, that a book’s...
View ArticleIs Submission Sexy?
Can submission be a good thing? The movie Fifty Shades of Grey has prompted this question. The movie, a film that romanticizes violent sex known colloquially as BDSM or Bondage and Discipline,...
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Love Lessons from ‘Anne of Green Gables’
Recently, I was staring at a huge tree, its branches covered in white blossoms. It had been a long winter in Washington, D.C., and I caught myself deliberately slowing my steps, wanting to savor the...
View ArticleLessons of Love and Romance from Gilbert Blythe
Gilbert Blythe is dead. Can it be? On hearing the news that actor Jonathan Crombie, who played Anne of Green Gables’ amour, had suddenly died, women everywhere were plunged into the “depths of...
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The Imagination is the Ultimate Diversity
Last month in Minneapolis, the Association of Writers and Writing Programs held the largest annual literary conference in North America, with more than 12,000 writers, teachers, students, editors, and...
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“Unbroken”: Great Book, But Morally Empty Movie
Last weekend I finally had the chance to see the Angelina Jolie-directed movie Unbroken, now out on DVD. I’ve been eager to see it ever since reading the inspirational bestselling book by Laura...
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Why Parents Aren’t Making Their Kids Read This Summer
All over the country, libraries and towns are rolling out summer reading programs that have a singular objective: encouraging kids to keep reading between late June and September when they won’t be...
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Celebrity False Confessions
On Wednesday, the Los Angeles Times reported that Shonda Rhimes, creator of shows such as Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal, is publishing a book, Year of Yes, which explores a year in her life as a force in...
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The Age of Judy Blume is Over
A Maryland mom of four recently got a phone call from her husband at the library. He wanted to know if Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret was OK to check out for their third grade daughter. He felt...
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What’s Human about ‘The Martian’
Originally self-published on the author’s website one chapter at a time, Andy Weir’s novel The Martian is set to become a feature film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Matt Damon later this year....
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You Have More Time Than You Think
Rather than handwringing about “having it all,” Laura Vanderkam encourages women to recognize the balance they already have and consider how much more is possible. Social media and websites dedicated...
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Ditch the Summer Reading List
Writing in 1908, the historian Henry Adams described winter as all about “compulsory learning” and school. Summer, on the other hand, was “tropical license” to do all the things children crave. Summer,...
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He’s Not a “Reluctant Reader.” He’s a Boy.
Stand around with any group of moms of elementary school-aged boys and eventually the words “reluctant” and “reader” will enter the conversation. A recently released local book list for the summer...
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Should ‘Gone with the Wind’ be Banned?
This Tuesday marked the anniversary of the 1936 publication of Margaret Mitchell’s Civil War-era epic Gone with the Wind, one of the bestselling novels of all time, which also became one of the most...
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Why Libraries Need Focus More than Change
Last week the American Library Association, the world’s oldest library organization, held its annual meeting in California. The theme of the meeting? “Transforming our Libraries. Ourselves.”...
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How a Father and Son Learned to Forgive
This fall marks the 20th anniversary of the Million Man March on Washington, D.C., when Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan called on African-American men to come together to promote family values...
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The Rise of “Aliteracy”
There is a new buzzword reemerging in reading circles—“aliteracy,” which means being able to read but rarely choosing to read. The backstory on aliteracy is the rise of the screen age. We’ve all read...
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To Troll a Mockingbird
Harper Lee may be something of a one-hit-wonder as a novelist, mostly due to the fact that, until just recently, she had only published one novel (To Kill a Mockingbird, 1960). But it was a pretty good...
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What Your Kids Can Learn from Nikola Tesla
During a recent book club meeting with a bunch of third through sixth graders, I asked the girls to write down the three most useful traits if you were attempting to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a...
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