Don’t get too excited. The "verdict" in question is the opinion of U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens who, according to this Wall Street Journal article, says Shakespeare didn’t write all those plays and poems after all:

Justice Stevens, who dropped out of graduate study in English to join the Navy in 1941, is an Oxfordian — that is, he believes the works ascribed to William Shakespeare actually were written by the 17th earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere.

This old argument is nothing new, even on this blog, where I wrote this post a while back that garnered some interesting comments (worth your time to read!).

The argument that Shakespeare didn’t write any of those plays is based on the idea that he was from a lower class family, did not have the right schooling, etc. In other words, it’s typical class warfare. But Shakespearean scholars and academics alike have pretty much debunked that myth. The fact that this same argument is coming from Justice Stevens, isn’t that surprising according to this article from the NY Daily News:

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The news about Amazon’s ‘glitch’ that has resulted in thousands of titles being removed from its ranking system has really spread around the internet like wildfire.

For those of you unfamiliar with the story, thousands of titles, dealing mostly with gay and lesbian themes, were removed from Amazon’s ranking system. This basically means none of those titles will show up on bestseller lists, "Amazon Recommends" lists, and pretty much everything else. In other words, you won’t find those titles unless you specifically search for them.

Amazon says it’s nothing more than a glitch that they are working to fix. Many on the intertubes, however, are pretty sure it’s a conspiracy by Amazon to censor what we read.

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I’m pretty convinced that J.K. Rowling does not read this blog, because if she did, she would have read this earlier post about her problem with ebook piracy. Yet Rowling has still refused to release her popular Harry Potter books into ebook format, creating a ripe environment for unscrupulous pirates to post digital copies of her novels online.

Today I came across this article from the Times Online, which says that her novels, along with other popular books, have shown up on the popular site Scribd.

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Today I was browsing my local bookstore and happened to overhear something that made me shake my head in disbelief. A young girl (probably a teen) was with her mom, and the girl said:

"I didn’t know Fitzgerald wrote Benjamin Button"

I almost ripped my hair out right then and there out of sheer frustration. The girl was, of course, referring to the special-edition book The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (aff link) that was released to coincide with the movie (which I have not seen yet). The story was originally written by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

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I don’t think I have ever watched the Oscars in my entire life. And last night was no exception. Seeing Hollywood pat itself on the back with these awards for the plethora of filth they churn out is less than appealing to me.

However, I did find it interesting to read that the movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button did win a few minor awards. Then I was shocked to read this LitKicks post that no one even mentioned F. Scott Fitzgerald, who wrote the short story that the movie was loosely based on.

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This story caught my attention for two reasons: First, it’s in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. I have been to Dubai and it’s a beautiful, vibrant city with very nice, hospitable people. Dubai is also very much a "literary" city where poetry is very popular (much more so than here in the US).

The second reason why this story caught my attention is because it deals with censorship. I take a hard, unyielding stand on any form of literary censorship because I firmly believe that literature reveals fundamental truths about the human condition – and those truths cannot be suppressed.

The book A Gulf Between Us by Geraldine Bedell was rejected from the Dubai Literary Festival that is coming up next week. Bedell wrote this piece in the Guardian, obviously upset by her book’s exclusion from the festival. She first describes how her book is not offensive to the Arab culture and might even shed some positive light in that region:

The book certainly isn’t a PR handout for the region, but I suspect (even hope) that makes the overall warmth towards it that much more telling. The book is an affectionate portrait, and I rather expected readers to be surprised that there could be so much to like.

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As popular as the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer is, apparently, Stephen King thinks (according to this article) her writing..well…stinks!

According to Stephen, "Both Rowling and Meyer, they’re speaking directly to young people… The real difference is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and Stephenie Meyer can’t write worth a darn. She’s not very good."

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With the sad passing of John Updike last week, it will still be years before his true impact on the literary world will be realized. But that hasn’t stopped publications like the New York Times from trying to place Mr. Updike in proper perspective, like they did in this article:

Mr. Updike was also America’s last true man of letters, an all-purpose writer and a custodian of literary culture. He wrote more, and in more different genres — stories, novels, poems, essays, reviews, occasional journalism — than anyone since Henry James, and it’s hard to imagine how he can be replaced. Who has the energy, or the eyeballs, for that much reading?

And in the very next paragraph, Mr. Updike is shown as a man who lived outside of the literary culture he dominated so much of:

In many ways, though, Mr. Updike was an unlikely man of letters. He lived a quiet, burgherly life in a seaside Boston suburb and seldom went to literary parties. He dropped by New York now and then to visit museums and see relatives, but he never stayed long. He didn’t teach; he almost never gave blurbs; he belonged to no literary school or faction. His idea of a reward after a morning’s work was not lunch or drinks with other writers but a round of golf with his buddies.

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In the few short hours since the very sad news of John Updike’s death, the news has spread around the blogosphere like wildfire. I’m sure there will be a lot of attention given to Updike’s passing over the next few days, considering how prolific a writer he was.

I always find it interesting to read other blogger’s reactions to sad news like this. So I gathered up some related blog posts from my Google Reader page and decided to link to them here as a way of paying homage to John Updike:

John Updike, 1932 – 2009 (from Writing Fiction)

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I just happened to be surfing the net reading the daily news and I came across this sad story that John Updike has died! Here’s a quote from the story I read:

John Updike, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, prolific man of letters and erudite chronicler of sex, divorce and other adventures in the postwar prime of the American empire, died Tuesday at age 76.

The news comes from this brief article on Fox News (yeah, I know). This is a sad day for the literary world, as Updike was a prolific writer. I read his Rabbit series when I first started studying literature in college and really enjoyed the books – maybe I’ll have to revisit them. The most recent Updike book I read was Terrorist. Not my favorite, but this isn’t the time or place for critiquing his work.

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