Oh sure, we had the best intentions when we headed to the Virginia Festival of the Book this past weekend. In its twelfth year, the festival is known for its wide variety of panels and unique pairings of topics and presenters. Poetry, fiction, history, self-help, self-published, publicists and the genre formerly known as comix swirl into a dizzying array of events each year in Charlottesville, Virginia, home of the University of Virginia. A real opportunity for literary-minded folk to browse, mingle and …

I attended a panel on book publishing in New York City yesterday, featuring Johnny Temple of Akashic Books (which has published at least one book I really love), Sarah Weinman of Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind and GalleyCat, and Jonathan Karp of Warner Twelve, which hasn’t published much yet, although Karp was responsible for at least one book I’ve enjoyed as well.

Moderator Bryan Keefer had chosen his presenters for maximum contrast; Karp proudly represented …

I’m not sure why I like reading Jay McInerney. He’s a moderately popular novelist with a shallow intellectual range and a level-headed narrative tone, and yet I felt inexplicably excited to read his new The Good Life, which is about two married Manhattan couples before and after September 11, 2001. As I waded through the first chapters I wasn’t sure why I was reading it at all.

Most novels are about people with big problems, but a typical Jay McInerney character has far …

With March winding to a close, I thought now would be a good time to announce my new reading list for the next installment of Jamelah Reads the Classics. Perhaps you noticed that my last group contained the work of only one woman (Jane Austen), or perhaps you didn’t. In either case, it’s true, and to make up for the oversight, this next round entirely consists of work by female writers. It is Women’s History Month, after all, and while I …

Polish writer Stanislaw Lem, author of “Eden” and “Solaris” (filmed by Andrei Tarkovsky in 1971 and by Steven Soderbergh in 2002) has died at the age of 84 today.

The satirical and philosophical science fiction writer — to whom the future had always been suspect — had foreseen many technological achievements in his utopias. His stories tell of the difficulties of communication between humans and other civilizations and of the limitation of human understanding. They portray the human indecision between curiosity and …

Political bloggers Jerome Armstrong and Markon Soulitsas Zuniga (of MyDD and DailyKos, respectively) have written a book, Crashing the Gate, designed to badger ineffective and discouraged Democrats to find strength in unity before the next election. These two internet-savvy activist/entrepeneurs did a great job of rallying popular opinion during the last Presidential election, and they run tight, highly focused online political/journalistic organizations. But maybe Peter Beinart doesn’t think as highly of them as I do, because his review of their book …

The publishing industry’s basic hardcover/paperback pricing structure is a dinosaur, and it’s time for this dinosaur to die. Here are a few reasons why two-tier book pricing has got to go:

It’s exclusionary. It’s amazing that book publishers consider themselves socially enlightened, because their basic pricing …

British playwright Tom Stoppard says free speech is not a basic human right and never has been. Naturally, a few bloggers don’t agree.

I love it when a good argument erupts on the blogosphere. Enough with the endless recitations of prizes and parties and industry comings and goings; for all its current popularity, the internet is underperforming as a platform for serious debate, and for this reason alone I am really glad to open my browser …

By now you have probably heard that Renee Zellweger has been tapped to play bunny-loving Beatrix Potter in an upcoming biopic about the author’s life. I actually think this is a pretty good choice, so I am interested to see how this project pans out and learn more about Potter’s life and accomplishments. Whether or not you’re a Beatrix Potter fan, you have to give props to anyone who writes a story titled The Story of a Fierce Bad Rabbit.

I really don’t know where I’m heading with this “rites of spring” theme. But here are some more links.

1. Symbolist-inspired children’s author Lemony Snicket has announced the impending publication of the final book in the Series of Unfortunate Events series. Apparently Daniel Handler is moving on to other things, and we’ll check out whatever he does next. My kids went crazy for these books, and they have pretty good taste. I read the first installment and was extremely …