Thing is, I still find that despite the reams written by and about him, this author continues to surprise and delight.  Every once in a while I’ll read a book (The Paris Wife) or an article about Hemingway and his intimates and cronies that makes me think, “Man, those people lived large!”  And despite the tragic ending and the many missteps I’ve always felt that he possessed great generosity of spirit.

Many years ago, I read in the local paper about a young man who wanted to be a writer and went to Hemingway for advice.  He was given two lists of books to read.  I dimly remember that both lists contained classic titles, but one featured books Ernest considered masterpieces and the other those he considered terrible.  He suggested that the young author become familiar with both, the logic being that you can learn a lot even from a bad book.   This notion has served me well professionally and so I’m always thrilled when I come across stories of Hemingway’s reading lists, like this one.

I think great writers learn to write by learning to read and I think a properly curated list is an invaluable tool.  Do you agree?  And, what books would be on the list you make up for someone looking for advice?

BTW, the cookbook is a treasure.  I’m gonna try the burger recipe this weekend.

In case you missed the snarky fun, last week The Millions ran a provocative article on the demise of the book review. I’m not sure that I agree that the book review is a dying art, and the art of pronouncing things dead (like the publishing business) is certainly thriving, but it is true that I rarely read literary hatchet jobs—and when I do, some sophomoric bit of me thrills at the claws-out, gleeful malice that seems evident in every line.  Bad reviews are, I imagine, both fun and easy to write, perhaps even more satisfying than flinging an offending volume across the room, which can become an expensive habit if you use an e-reader. Thoughtful ones are more challenging, and reviews that reveal and transfigure a book’s contents (rather than the biases of the reviewer) are few and far between.  Unqualified raves, meanwhile, seem undignified, insufficiently serious. Most of the time.   Earlier this month the NYTBR ran Christopher Buckley’s love letter of a review of MORTALITY, Christopher Hitchens’ posthumously published collections of essays.

A few days later, in the letters section, I was interested to note that at least one reader found Buckley’s rosy review problematic. Irate in Armonk wrote “Buckley’s review reads like another tribute from the vast boys’ club of Hitchens’s intimates. I’m sure many authors would like to have their books reviewed in The New York Times by their friends, but that wouldn’t serve your readers. Neither did this review.”

His criticism brought to mind a particularly pungent line from the Millions essay that called the “nauseating chumminess of the publishing world… the Scylla of book criticism.” He called “Reviewerly narcissism… its Charybdis.”  Touche.

I’m curious to know if you can cite any particularly illuminating or excoriating reviews, and  if you believe the book review is dying or finding a new life online.

Whether you loved the nominated books or hated them, or never even heard of them, the reality is that historically the prize does help sales. In a market that’s changing so rapidly and with the shrinking number of retailers, most of us feel like we want every boost we can get for our books. A Pulitzer Prize certainly offers that.

Ann Patchett (one of my favorites, as you might know) sums it up beautifully in her New York Times op-ed piece. As she suggests, the Pulitzer is the literary version of the Oscar, and to not have a prize this year when we’re all craving good news is definitely disappointing. It is sad to think, as Patchett points out, that David Foster Wallace will not have another chance to win. So, we’ll sigh and move on.

What do you all think of this? Do you care about the Pulitzer for fiction or that one wasn’t awarded this year? Is it something that makes you go out and buy a book (I’ll admit I did buy Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad last year after it won the prize)? Curious minds want to know.

We are also passionate about the written word in its myriad forms and about the primacy of the creative process.  Even when working with prima donna “authors,” celebrities who are barely literate, and writers of all stripes whose work should probably be hurled across the room in homage to the great Dorothy Parker, many of us are easily star struck.  All it takes is a brilliant turn of phrase, a well crafted, ambitious novel, a surprising and daring narrative gambit and we’re in love.

But, most of us in the business know with utter certainty that there are books that should be shelved, put in a drawer, sent through the shredder or, in the case of the truly great writers, consigned to footnotes in fawning biographies.  In this era of e-books and the voracious need for content, whatever its worth, it’s hard to defend the position that some books just should not be published.  And yet, some books should not be published.

Reading this short piece in the HuffPost about “lost” early efforts by renowned authors, later found and brought out under the guise of offering additional glimpses into those authors’ psyches, reinforces my opinion that not everything deserves to be in print.  My contention that someone should have told Shakespeare to put aside Titus Andronicus and turn his talents to somewhat less bloody family dramas has gotten me in trouble in literature classes as well as cocktail parties but really, would that have been such a loss?

I think all of us need to recognize, especially now when it’s so easy to self-publish, when something is not ready for public consumption and be able to move on to the next project with an eye to applying the lessons learned and producing something stronger, better…publishable.  What do you think?  As writers, can you make the call on your own work?  Can you make the call on other peoples’?  Should everything be published, the good, the bad, and the badly written?

In any case, in honor of Halloween, I have a question for the audience: if you had to reanimate one dead author so they could write just one more book, who would it be?

I’m having trouble with the question myself. It’s easy to say someone like Kurt Vonnegut, but his output was getting a little weak at the end there, so maybe zombie Vonnegut wouldn’t have a ton left to say.

So what about a Bronte sister? Anne and Emily were 30 when they died, so it seems possible there’s some great work that could have come there, but how sad would it be if it turned out Wuthering Heights was a fluke and Emily was a one-hit wonder. Seems like a wasted reanimation.

For now, I’ll pick George Orwell. It’s been 60+ years since he passed away, but who wouldn’t want to know what the writer of 1984 thought of where we ended up. Sure, his next book might be a smug, “I told you so,” but even then…I’d take it.

Any other suggestions?