Book Buzz

• What book is popping up everywhere I look? No, not Breaking Dawn (okay, yes, Breaking Dawn). Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Acheron, yet another vampire book.
  

• Okay, let’s talk Breaking Dawn. The book is topping the bestsellers lists, but I didn’t get my hands on a copy until today. As such, I’ve tried to avoid reading anything about it. For anyone who is interested, though, here is a review from Booklist; USA Today claims “fans light up over saga’s end”; this article from MSN gives the pros and cons of the series, asking the question “Does ‘Twilight’ Suck the Brains Out of Teens?” (my answer: yes); and I suspect this review from Los Angeles Times (which contains spoilers) doesn’t exactly love the book.

• Looking for young adult books that don’t “suck”? NPR’s Weekend Edition commemorated the 100th anniversary of Anne of Green Gables. Want something a little more modern? The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 movie came out yesterday. Fans of Kostos will love it. Fans of Eric will be très disappointed.
  

• On a more serious note, Aleksandr Solzhenitzyn, author of Gulag Archipelago and Nobel Prize winner, died on Sunday. NPR featured a nice tribute to him as did The New York Times.
  

• Outgoing American Library Association President Loriene Roy shared her list of “essential” reads on NPR Tuesday. I haven’t read any books on her list, so I suspect I won’t be the ALA President any time in the near future.
  

• Are you dying for some more lists? Slate featured “The 10 Oddest Travel Guides Ever Published” (I've read exactly zero) and The Guardian “Top 10 graphic novels” (I've actually read the top two).
  

• Ammon Shea read the entire Oxford English Dictionary. Find out why (seriously, why?) in his book Reading the OED. The Times liked it, so I assume it is a little more interesting than actually reading the dictionary. The Times also enjoyed Lee Israel’s memoir Can You Ever Forgive Me?: Memoirs of a Literary Forger. Amazon features the book as one of its “Best of the Month.”