The Bible, according to a new poll, is Americans’ favorite book. Mm-hmm… How many, do you reckon, have actually read it? I mean, apart from John 3:16, a couple Psalms or Proverbs, and the obligatory doomsday prophecies of Revelation. On a related note, did you know that many Evangelicals think it’s heretical to read and appreciate the Bible as literature? . . .
Zoë Heller’s The Believers will be one of the first novels made available in e-book form as part of Penguin UK’s new program.
Amitava Kumar reports on Philip Roth’s 75th birthday tribute. More here.
Whatever I paid to search the Dallas Morning News archives last month allowed me access to something like 50 articles, but only for 24 hours. So after I found what I was looking for (confirmation that one of my mom’s father’s wives really did shoot him), and had exhausted all possible searches on the subject, I typed in other Texan . . .
When book chatter starts to seem shallow and monotonous — as it frequently does — I turn to the greats. Or, to paraphrase Mark Twain, these are old sayings, but there is nothing else the matter with them. “It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.” . . .