Anita Shreve discusses her fascination with houses, particularly with a white clapboard mansard-roof house on the coast of Maine that inspired three of her novels: The Pilot’s Wife (1998), Fortune’s Rocks (1999), and Sea Glass (2002). “`You could base an entire life's work on the people who come in and out of a house,’ she said.”

The article in the print edition of the New York Times (front page of the House & Home section, April 25, 2002) contains a photo of the Maine house, although that photo does not appear in the Web edition.


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Catch up with John Irving on a European tour for the release of the French version of his novel The Fourth Hand. Irving, whose books are more popular in Europe, especially in Germany, than in the U.S., has spent a lot of time in Europe and is as comfortable there as in his native United States. “Europe is also the setting for his upcoming Until I Find You , in which the protagonist retraces a trip he took as a six-year-old boy to Amsterdam, Stockholm, Copenhagen and Edinburgh.” Read Irving’s comments on the state of the novel in general and on writer Tom Wolfe in particular.

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Writer Patrik Jonsson examines the growing number of creative writing courses and degree programs being offered by U.S. colleges and universities: “As book sales hit an all-time high, more students are in pursuit of the perfect paragraph at colleges across the United States. Schools are raising the stakes and even staking their reputations on grooming great writers – and fine-tuning their degrees to cater to the growing numbers of would-be Faulkners and O'Connors entering their gates.” These creative writing programs often find themselves in conflict with the traditional English department, whose practitioners believe that students learn about good writing by studying the works of good writers: “there's been `blood in the hallways’ over whether students should be discussing the intricacies of Charlotte Brontë and John Donne or eyeing one another's half-baked prose.” The teachers whom Jonsson interviewed offer their views on the reasons why so many students want to study creative writing and how such courses contribute to one’s career pursuits.

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We’ve heard a lot recently about scholars taking issue with material in books published by historians Stephen Ambrose and Doris Kearns Goodwin. But here’s a new twist on the topic: When publications favorably review books that are later found to be inaccurate, does the reviewing publication have an obligation to notify readers or, perhaps, to retract its review? Writing in the Christian Science Monitor, Kim Campbell addresses the case of the book Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture by Michael Bellesiles, published in 2000. Read what historians, publishers, book reviewers, and editors have to say on the subject.

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“A study in the February issue of Scientific American reports that TV viewing can be as addictive as drinking, drugs, and gambling,” reports Marilyn Gardner in this Christian Science Monitor article. Gardner praises the current trend of cities choosing a book for the residents to read and discuss together. “There is something particularly touching about the citywide ‘read-ins ‘ and the idealism, the yearning for community, that drives them,” Gardner says. “In a high-tech age, the low-tech book is proving daily that it can still hold its own.”


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“Since advertising dollars went south more than a year ago, newspapers across the country have scaled back book sections–-never known as ad magnets-–in order to save on newsprint,” reports Dan Gilgoff in U.S. News & World Report. Supporters of this trend say that newspaper book review sections can’t draw enough advertising to justify a larger size. Critics of the trend offer an interesting counterargument:

But many book section editors and critics say their newspapers are turning a cold shoulder to book lovers at a time when they should be embraced, not ceded to television and online news outlets. "I don't see how you can play down your greatest strength as a newspaper: the written word," says [Philadelphia] Inquirer Book Editor Frank Wilson. "It seems to me that people who are into reading are the core newspaper consumers."

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Check out the summer reading lists of authors Michael Connelly, Andre Dubus III, Dick Francis, E. Lynn Harris, Faye Kellerman, Terry McMillan, Walter Mosley, James Patterson, Nora Roberts, and Anita Shreve.

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If you’re planning your summer vacation and are looking for “beach reads” to take along, consider this from USA Today:

According to Carl Lennertz, the publisher program director of Book Sense, part of the American Booksellers Association, the image of the toss away no-brainer beach book is passé. "Smart publishers have taken summertime back for serious books. Beach reading now means light fiction and serious nonfiction. One of the first breakthroughs was Truman in hardcover a few years back, launched in time for Father's Day, and then it carried over into the summer."

This article describes some of the books due to hit stores this summer. Expected to be one of the biggest hits is Tom Clancy’s Red Rabbit , “a prequel to the 1984 book that made him a star of book and film: The Hunt for Red October. It's Jack Ryan, the early years. He's a young CIA analyst trying to unravel a plot involving the potential assassination of Pope John Paul II.” Red Rabbit will hit bookstore shelves on August 5.

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About.com lists the recently announced prize winners in the following categories: fiction, first novel, poetry, biography, mystery/thriller, and young adult fiction.

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Writing in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Anonymous, a professor of English at an American university, details how her academic career contributed to her alcoholism. “No profession can make someone an addict, but every profession can enable addiction with its stories and romanticizations,” she says. Her problem began with the romantic notion of the relationship between alcohol and creativity, then grew, fed by the stereotypes of writers who did their best work while drunk and, later, of eccentric professors who were most brilliant while slightly sloshed. Fascinating reading.

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Publishing industry insiders are reacting to a study released recently by the Book Industry Study Group:

There was one line of good news in the report: Americans will spend slightly more on adult and juvenile books during the next five years.

And several paragraphs of bad news: Books will cost more and fewer will be sold.

The BISG warns that the total number of books sold will continue to decline through 2006 and “forecasts that publishers will be selling fewer and fewer juvenile books in the future.” One bookstore owner offers a possible explanation:

“ ‘Chicken Soup’ books,” she explains. “That kind of pure commercial product has probably diluted the market for serious books that require more of an attention span, an attention span that has been frayed by everything in contemporary society.”

Her solution to the problem? “People need to read more.”

Some industry executives don’t agree with the forecast of gloom for the publishing industry, including Patricia Schroeder, president of the Association of American Publishers. Yet publisher Michael Cader warns that the problem will continue:

. . . a potential decline in young readers will make the situation worse when those kids grow up. It raises urgent questions about everything from book pricing to how we treat reading in our society and use technology to grow audiences.