"I get the sense of a cityscape, the way the title rises against the dark sky of the background, and the psychedelic texture of the letters..."

With Mother’s Day quickly approaching, I brought up the idea to my wife – a sixth grade English teacher and avid “literary fiction” aficionado (ie: not a genre fiction fan) – of doing a blog listing some of the most beloved mothers in literature. She just laughed and said, “Good luck with that – seems like the good ones are either dead, deranged or just dutiful background characters.” Really? There surely had to be more than a few venerated mothers in literature that weren’t cardboard stereotypes – so I began compiling a list of popular mothers in literature off the top of my head…

Alison Bechdel is forever burdened and gifted by time. How so? Her stunning graphic memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic was named best book of 2006 by TIME Magazine, raising the inevitable question: What's next? Are You My Mother? is the answer. Which brought to mind: What is inevitable about questions? How we make them in English, that's what. How do we make questions, anyway, from a grammar and syntax point of view? 

"When I heard from my editor that the publishing team wanted to explore a different design - one, I was told, conveying 'more warmth' - I was not at all pleased... I imagined garish colors and busy designs; I became sure that the 'warmer' cover would contain some heinous inaccuracy - a sister who looked not as I imagined her, maybe, or a girl dressed more like Anne of Green Gables than Jo March. I was not liking the sound of it at all..."

How eager I am to read Farther Away, essays and lectures from the wonderful Jonathan Franzen. Although known for his huge and hugely important novels The Corrections and Freedom, Franzen has produced a wealth of excellent essays, from his first piece on fiction in 1996 to more recent pieces in the New Yorker. And of course I noted that it's Farther, not Further Away. But why? What is the difference, anyway?

"The cover changed radically in theme, mood, color, complexity and impact. The second cover is the one that is now  wrapped around my book, on sale in stores..."

After the phenomenal success of HBO’s Emmy and Golden Globe winning series Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin has become a household name, a bearded pop culture icon with suspenders. His A Song of Ice and Fire novels (A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, et. al.) are all back on national bestseller lists and some of his earlier work is being unearthed and reissued to a whole new audience of readers – like Fevre Dream, a bloody little vampire fiction gem that has been included on countless “best vampire novels of all time” lists...