Meanwhile, this is awesome

The Lord of the Rings (1954)
Author: J.R.R. Tolkien
“The book is not readable because of the overuse of adverbs.”

Excellent page of one-star Amazon reviews of famous novels. Via The Bandarlog.

Hating Blogger

There's supposed to be some more unrequired reading below, but Blogger keeps telling me that this blog doesn't exist. Pfft.

More seriously

A sad day: Wayne Booth has died. Having spent some of my happier teenage hours reading The Rhetoric of Fiction, I mourn his passing.

Economists of America, ready your Cliff Notes

In a frenzy of ongoing bearishness, Morgan Stanley's Steve Roach gives in and quotes from ... Silas Marner. I am so fired up by the possibilities: I want to see Brad deLong on Middlemarch, David Roche on Daniel Deronda, David Wessel on The Mill on the Floss ....