“I don’t know what your childhood was like, but we didn’t have much money. We’d go to a movie on a Saturday night, then on Wednesday night my parents would walk us over to the library. It was such a big deal, to go in and get my own book.”

—Robert Redford

“Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him.”

—Maya Angelou

A new book series, DC Super-Pets—focusing on the super-powered pets of  Superman, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, Batman and Green Lantern—will debut this month.

From the press release: “These intrepid Super-Pets—Krypto the Super-Dog, Ace the Bat-Hound, Streaky the Super-Cat, Beppo the Super-Monkey, Jumpa the Super-Kangaroo, and their friends—save the day and foil the evil plans of the universe’s most dastardly super villains.”

GalleyCat

Upon dictating the capacious story of his life (this
half is over 700 pages long), Twain stipulated that it
shouldn’t be published unexpurgated until 100 years
after his death. Seven months after the passing of that
milestone, fans will finally get their look. Nov. 15.

And 19 more titles to watch.

New York

“I Like You,” by Amy Sedaris

“Traveling Mercies,” by Anne Lamott

“A Tale of Two Cities,” by Charles Dickens

“Away,” by Amy Bloom

“A Prayer for Owen Meany,” by John Irving

—O

In the old days—which, in this case, would be like two years ago—getting a book published would mean finding an agent, shopping it to publishing houses, and—when that failed—paying to print it yourself.

Now that has changed.

San Francisco Chronicle

The onetime literary lioness divided her books into
“good” and “crap,” which sure beats alphabetizing.

Julia Keller, culture critic for the Chicago Tribune,
admires the system. “Parker’s ruthlessness makes
a perverse sort of sense to me,” she writes. “… yea
or nay. Delight or disgust. Thumbs up or down.”

It leads to a good book reading rule, she says: Trust
your first impressions.

Keller offers other rules for book readers:

• Buy at least one book in the next month
that will make your friends say, “You’re
reading that?”

• Read a classic, but put a strip of black
electrical tape over the word “classic” if it
appears anywhere on the cover or title page.

• Avoid any book with an exclamation point
in the title.

• Mark in your books. Underline passages
you love or hate. Argue in the margins.

Chicago Tribune

“It’s a misconception that children these days are losing interest in books. If that were true, we wouldn’t have published the number of books that we do every year and wouldn’t have made profits during the recession period last year!“

— Shantanu Duttagupta, Scholastic India

The Hindu

We somehow missed this column in the LA Times written just before the new year by our old friend (and former Philly guy) Steve Lopez. It’s about this girl named Susan who used to tell her little sister made up stories while giving her a bath. Susan grew to love telling her sister these stories, so much so that when she grew up she became a librarian and then wrote a kid’s book. Lopez and his daughter both discovered the book one day, and …

Oh here, just read it yourself.

It’s just one more reminder that there are so many better ways to spend time beyond updating your facebook status.

“Writing Real Life,” a series of workshops focusing on the invaluable nuts and bolts of writing, concluded this past Saturday with a happy surprise—a book for each student written and personally signed by their workshop leader, Ben Yagoda.

(Ben’s new book is titled “Memoir: A History,” Riverhead, $25.95.)

Among the many pointers Ben emphasized to MW students over a series of Saturday afternoon sessions:

• Real writers publish. (Get away from journal writing and submit your work.)

• Revise. (The best writing goes through a number of drafts.)

• Read stories that have been edited. (Read a lot, but choose carefully. Editors invariably make stories better.)

• Carry a pad and pencil with you at all times. (It’s important to jot down ideas immediately before you forget them.)

• Avoid clichés at all cost. (Go through your stories carefully and delete any easy metaphors or analogies.)