Philip Weinstein, an author and scholar who has published works about writers such as Faulkner, Proust, and Kafka, plans to pen a book about Jonathan Franzen. Weinstein tells the New York Times that rather than a traditional biography, the book will examine how turmoil in the author's life has shaped his work. "It doesn't pretend to be a full-scale biography," Weinstein says. "It's too early for that. He's in full career mode. Someone later, a generation from now, will do that biography. It's a report on who he is." Bloomsbury will publish Jonathan Franzen: The Comedy of Rage in Fall 2015.
"There's a deeply implanted desire and understanding and wanting of books and needing of books…. It's a deeper well of human experience." Stephen King talked to the Huffington Post this morning about his upcoming film, A Good Marriage, as well as the importance and permanence of physical books and the future of the publishing industry.
Wow, very interesting that a school banned John Green's TFIOS. Although it is a YA book which means it is not intended for middle schoolers, but kids at least fourteen years old. A lot of the YA I read has very adult language and themes and I wonder if it is appropriate for my 13-year-old. But instead of banning the book, how about reading it with them and then discussing the topics? TFIOS isn't about cancer and death, but the way people treat other people who are sick or dying, tiptoeing around them like they are contagious or already dead. Reading can open up so many lines of communication. I just hate to see that shut down.