What's the Right Age to Read a Book?

What's the Right Age to Read a Book? a NYT op-ed piece by Jennifer Finney Boylan

I certainly agree that some books only work for a reader when read at a certain time of life, but haven't tried to read both The Great Gatsby and Catcher in the Rye at different ages and still don't like either one.  According to Boylan, though, I'm still too young!

great news!

The New York Times reports: the Baby-Sitters Club is back!

personal libraries

An interesting essay about how people choose books for their personal library.

I rarely buy books (I am a librarian, after all). My criteria: if I were stuck in my apartment forever, is this a book I would want to read over and over again?

lots and lots of words

NYTimes Book Review about the man who read the OED straight through. Somehow I think just reading the review is enough for me, but there were a lot of great words. I think my favorite might be obmutescence (willful speechlessness) or possibly acnestis (the part of an animal’s back that the animal can’t reach to scratch).

love me, love my books

An interesting essay on reading and relationships from the NYTimes Book Review. In my case, taste in books was definitely not a deal-breaker, since my husband hardly reads, and my nervous litany of "I read this" on our first date at a bookstore-cafe didn't keep him from calling me!

best sports to write/read about

Another interesting question posed by Bob Harris at Paper Cuts. This time it's about which sport makes for the best literature. I'm clearly going to have to go with baseball, and suggest Summerland by Michael Chabon, which really makes you understand what it's like to love the game.

Overused Words

Another fun one from Paper Cuts, this time about the Seven Deadly Words of Book Reviewing, although, for the record, eschew is one of my favorite words.

most overrated books

Very interesting post (and responses) from the NYTimes Paper Cuts blog about the most overrated books through history.

Reading is dead, long live reading?

From the NYT BookLust blog, and interesting response from Timothy Egan to Steve Jobs' claim that reading is dead in another NYT article. Read Steve Jobs's comment here and Timothy Egan's response here.

NYTimes Book Review essay

I thought this essay from the NY Times Book Review was interesting. You can read the NEA's report here.