From Karen Heller’s article with many title recommendations: “William Lashner, the best-selling mystery writer, is big on Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment. ‘Books that are assigned in high school get a bad rap. This one is a blast.'” I heartily agree.

If you find yourself frustrated with politics or elections this year or next, I have two recommendations for you. First, turn off the news for a week. Sure the earth will probably burn at the poles because you aren’t staying informed, but that’s a risk you should take for your peace of mind. Turning off the news, especially TV news, will help you get your mind off bothersome things you can’t control and allow you to worry about personal things you can’t control. That’s called relaxation.

Second, read Flannery O’Connor’s short story “The Barber.” It’s a humorous little tale about a professor who feels compelled to argue politics with his thick-headed barber. Though the professor calls himself a liberal, I think the story will appeal to anyone who believes he has good reasons on his side and the opposition is all cliché.

I should say upfront I’m not sure of O’Connor’s main point in this story. You could easily take away the idea that arguing politics with anyone is worthless, as one character recommends, but I’m not willing to stop there. The professor’s passion and humiliation seem to better address the idea that it’s worthless to argue with some people. The barber is clearly a fool, and I’m sure O’Connor was familiar with the Proverbs on fools.

A scoffer seeks wisdom in vain,

but knowledge is easy for a man of understanding.

Leave the presence of a fool,

for there you do not meet words of knowledge.

The wisdom of the prudent is to discern his way,

but the folly of fools is deceiving. (Proverbs 14:6-8 ESV)

It may be just the story to entertain you when you’re frustrated with candidates and commenters, but whatever your position on the issues this year and no matter what your barber says to you, don’t sock him in the face, okay? As a great politician once said, it wouldn’t be prudent.

Marvin Olasky has listed his favorite 100 books from the past seven years. I wonder if he read “The Charge of the Light Brigade” during those years.

I was scared and had gooseflesh, and my stomach clenched, and the hair on my arms stood on end, and I tucked my feet beneath me so the boogieman under the bed couldn’t grab them, and when Nancy was in the tunnel I could hardly bear to turn the page for fear of what might happen next, and yet I couldn’t help turning the page to see what happened next. Oh, it was wonderful!

— Mystery author Nancy Pickard on reading the original Nancy Drew.

I haven’t read any Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys, but with an original movie coming up, I’m thinking about buying a set of the first six stories for my girls.

Wouldn’t there be a market for a national literary supplement, something to go in USA Today maybe? Perhaps the NYTBR holds that place, and yet it is as disgraced its partner paper, is it not?

Grad student Kristen Keckler remembers seeking out book reviews in the Sunday paper, clipping them, and taking a folder of them to the bookstore to help her buy interesting or winning books. “While Amazon suggests books it ‘thinks’ I’ll like,” she says, “newspaper book reviews introduce me to books off my radar, books I wouldn’t encounter otherwise. Print book reviews also offer the authority, depth, and substance that online reviews often lack.”

I feel for her, honestly, and I do wonder about a national book review, The USABR, if you will; but regardless, I can readily imagine a country without newspapers.

World Mag Blog asks what are the most influential books from the last 25 years? According to USA Today, Harry Potter #1 is number one on that list.

Employees at Waterstone’s, Britain’s largest bookstore chain, prefer male authors to female in a recent survey. “The company asked its 5,000 employees to name their favourite five books written since 1982, when Waterstone’s opened its first store. The resulting list of the top 100 favourites is dominated by male authors,” reports the UK Telegraph.

A store spokesman said, while women don’t care about an author’s gender, “Subconsciously, I think men stick to male writers. They think that what women write doesn’t appeal to them.” (via Books, Inq.)

Is reading overrated? I mean, do you have to read every page from cover to cover? There’s Frenchman who says don’t worry about reading a book for talking or even teaching about it. He may be full of hot air, but Lennard J. Davis says he may have a point or two:

Let’s remember that even one of the greatest readers of literature, Samuel Johnson, admitted that “Paradise Lost is one of the books which the reader admires and puts down, and forgets to take up again. None ever wished it longer than it is.” In fact, Johnson seemed to have made quite a career of not reading. He once lamented to his friend Mrs. Thrale, “Alas, Madam! How few books are there of which one can ever possibly arrive at the last page.” And reacting to advice that once started, a book should be read all the way through, he opined, “A book may be good for nothing; or there may be only one thing in it worth knowing; are we to read it all through?”

I agree with the last comment and wish I could practice it better.

Is reading overrated? I mean, do you have to read every page from cover to cover? There’s Frenchman who says don’t worry about reading a book for talking or even teaching about it. He may be full of hot air, but Lennard J. Davis says he may have a point or two:

Let’s remember that even one of the greatest readers of literature, Samuel Johnson, admitted that “Paradise Lost is one of the books which the reader admires and puts down, and forgets to take up again. None ever wished it longer than it is.” In fact, Johnson seemed to have made quite a career of not reading. He once lamented to his friend Mrs. Thrale, “Alas, Madam! How few books are there of which one can ever possibly arrive at the last page.” And reacting to advice that once started, a book should be read all the way through, he opined, “A book may be good for nothing; or there may be only one thing in it worth knowing; are we to read it all through?”

I agree with the last comment and wish I could practice it better.

A new survey out of Britain says the average person may buy several books in a year, but read only half of them. I’m sure I would fill out the low end of the average, though I’m also low on the number of books I buy too. Don’t hate me. I do intend to read them all somehow.

Coincidentally, Sandra of Book World quotes from Virginia Woolf today: “The only advice, indeed, that one person can give another about reading is to take no advice, to follow your own instincts, to use your own reason, to come to your own conclusions. … After all, what laws can be laid down about books?”

What laws can be laid down? Do you have to read a book completely to consider it read? It applies more to non-fiction, but should a reader not feel free to dip into a book to pull out a tasty apple, leaving the rest of it unread at least for the moment?