Browsing on a Wednesday Afternoon

How many times have you read War and Peace?. Andrew Marr claims to have read it 15 times. A.S. Byatt says she's read it five and then chirps, "Everyone who reads books reads it." I guess I don't actually read books because I have never read it. So if anyone can shed light on what I am really doing when I stare at those black squiggles on a page, I'd be much obliged.

For some reason I am fascinated by the ruckus over Google Print. I think it a fabulous idea but lots of people don't. For a reasoned op-ed on the pro side, read Tim O'Reilly's article

A Times UK article on banned books week in the US. The ALA's "list of opposed books reveals a society still struggling with major hang-ups about sex, race, religion and Holocaust victims who are insufficiently jolly." We do have major hang-ups and I think it about time we stop blaming it on the Puritans, and while we're at it, let's get rid of the Protestant work ethic too.

Jeanette Winterson writes a short piece about a lot of things and concludes, "Books are not luxuries. In a squeezed and shrinking world--like one of those awful rooms out of Poe, that squashes you to death--books don’t just line the walls, they stop them closing in." Ya gotta love someone who says stuff like that.

Scott Esposito of Converstaional Reading has well done article at Raintaxi on litblogs.