'Sexy' Classics We Say We've Read

Obama's vacation book list drives leaps in Amazon sales rankings

(NEWSER) - President Obama’s poll numbers are faltering, but his summer reading choices are getting rave reviews, Politico reports. A survey of the Amazon.com standings of the five books the White House announced he would take with him on his Martha’s Vineyard vacation show a drastic improvement in sales. If you’re doubtful about joining Obama’s Book Club, look at these numbers and follow the pack: More»

(NEWSER) - The digital world has become so engrossing that David L Ulin finds it difficult to focus and read a book—not a good sign when you're the editor of the Los Angeles Times book review. "The encroachment of the buzz," from hours of emails to inane rumors across the Web, has made it more and more difficult to settle into the paces of reading. "Reading is an act of contemplation," he writes, that is growing ever harder to master. More»

Study indicates literary decline might be reversing

(NEWSER) - The percentage of Americans reading fiction has increased for the first time in years, a new study by the National Endowment for the Arts indicates. The reported 50.2% of the population who picked up a book for pleasure marks a turnaround from a statistical decline in literary culture over the past two decades, the New York Times reports. More»

Weekly installments end with a choice

(NEWSER) - Fantasy fans who’d like a role in the action can turn to literature’s latest incarnation: the online Web-novel, or wovel, NPR reports. Readers can click and read a chapter each week. Then, “at the end of every installment, there's a binary plot branch point with a vote button,” says the founder of online and traditional publisher Underland Press. More»

Newspapers dropping book reviews helps confine ideas to a 'literary ghetto'

(NEWSER) - Newspapers are under financial pressure, and one of the first things to go is often the book reviews. But author and editor Steve Wasserman thinks that's a serious problem. “Civilization is built on a foundation of books,” he declares in a polemic in CJR, and stripping their pages of book reviews, he says, is indicative of the anti-intellectual hostility endemic in many newsrooms. More»