Martinis, Vinegar: Famed Writers' Favorite Snacks

Meghan Daum is sick of 'entitled' children who don't think for themselves

(NEWSER) - Not surprisingly, Los Angeles Times columnist Meghan Daum gets quite a few emails. But perhaps more infuriating than the ones "telling me I'm a moron and the reason print media is dying" are the ones asking her to do some kid's homework. "Not a week goes by that I don't hear from at least one high school student who's been assigned a paper about my writing and wants me to tell her what to say," she writes. "Frequently this desire is phrased without a great deal of punctuation or even the use of spell-check." More»

Literary writers are re-embracing idea of a good plot

(NEWSER) - The 21st-century novel is being reacquainted with an old friend: the plot. Today's best writers are abandoning the notion that literary novels need to be all but impenetrable to readers without advanced degrees, writes Lev Grossman in the Wall Street Journal. "The revolution is under way," he says. "The novel is getting entertaining again." More»

Tireless writer published average of one book every ten years

(NEWSER) - Lyndon Johnson's biographer takes his work seriously—so much so, he didn't cover LBJ's presidency for 30 years, Newsweek reports. Rising from the tabloid world in the 1960s, Robert Caro first wrote a painstaking biography of New York mogul Robert Moses. Next came a volume on LBJ's youth; Caro even slept outdoors in rural Texas to get a feel for it. History "can be literature in the deepest and highest sense of that term," Caro says. More»

New writers' book jackets reveal the top 10 lazy comparisons

(NEWSER) - Blurbs for hot new writers' books unfailingly liken them to a handful of known quantities, Chris Rovzar observes in New York. Here are some of the most-abused blurb comparisons:

• F. Scott Fitzgerald or Edith Wharton. Writing about crumbling, decadent high society? "If you're a boy, you're Scott; if you're a girl, you're Edith."
• Candace Bushnell. If your "concept is so good and sexy that you don't have to worry about execution."