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Weekend Highlight LitNotes
May 21, 2007

Like everyone else in America, I use the weekends to catch up with reading periodicals and newspapers and blogs -- as often as possible, in the Adirondack chair in my backyard (thank you, God, for wireless access). I found a few pieces that amused and/or enlightened me, and I hope you'll enjoy them, too:

TIME Magazine Harry Potter Series Additions: This is much better in hard copy, since the Web page doesn't display the mocked book covers, but still funny.

Norman Mailer Has Some Axes to Grind: Or at least, as he demonstrates in this NYTBR feature, an axe he doesn't mind wielding. When asked which book or books they thought could use chopping, a bunch of famous authors sent in their choices -- some took it seriously (Ann Patchett), some took it in good fun (Jonathan Franzen's abridged titles), but Norman Mailer took it in deadly earnest: "Mr. Mailer sent in a list without commentary, which he requested be printed in full." Look on these works, ye mighty (Hemingway, Dos Passos, Faulkner, Steinbeck), and despair...

Richard Schickel, Dino-Mite!: OK, so this isn't technically from the weekend... it's a post from today's GalleyCat blog. but Ron Hogan just posted it, so it's news... right? Why do so many fine critics believe that print "concentrates the mind wonderfully" and writing for the Web doesn't? Does Schickel (along with Michael Dirda) believe that the typewriter ruined Mark Twain? That the word processor negates all of Michael Chabon's work?

Posted by Bethanne Patrick on May 21, 2007 | Comments (1)