The same group that helped in the defense of Roger Rapoport, who was sued after trying to publish The Harry Potter Lexicon (read more about the case here), will become an official tax-exempt organization to help writers with issues on fair use and first amendment rights. I came across this article on Publishers Weekly, which describes the goals of the new organization that will…

…help support other creative artists faced with legal threats or lawsuits.

Additionally, the Right to Write will also collect and help spread information regarding intellectual property issues:

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I’m trying to avoid getting too political in this blog, because that’s not what this blog is about. Although the subject of literature and free expression tend to easily get pulled into the political arena, so I’m forced to confront these issues head on.

Many have rightly pointed out that the alleged book list I linked to in this post is probably not the list of books Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin wanted to ban from her small-town public library. In that post I expressed my doubts, as I could not find a reliable source to back the list up. For all we know, the only true list of books Sarah Palin wanted to ban from the library only exists on a lipstick-smeared napkin tucked between her bible and the corpse of the latest moose she killed.

All this attention given to Palin’s attempt to have certain books pulled from the library is finally catching the attention of the McCain Campaign, and they’re fighting back. Nothing surprising there. I did find this article on the Huffington Post blog about the issue and thought it raised some interesting points – despite there being no official list:

Certainly, there was no official list drawn up. However, in a fact the McCain email leaves out, Palin approached the librarian three times to ask about the possibility, which could legitimately appear to some as something of a pressure campaign (especially considering that Palin attempted to have the librarian removed afterward).

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When I first came across this story in the New York Times, I almost thought it was a joke. The mere irony that this would happen to Edgar Allan Poe is something you just can’t make up (well, he probably could have, if he were still alive).

In case you haven’t read the article yet, here’s the lowdown: Currently, Poe is buried in Baltimore, MD where he died back in 1849. But another city, Philadelphia, PA, also lays claim to Poe’s body, since that is the city where the author wrote many of his most famous works.

The story doesn’t stop there, however. A Philadelphia Poe scholar named Edward Petit is the one fighting for the rights to bury the author in his city. This is what he said in a recent interview:

"So, Philadelphians, let’s hop in our cars, drive down I-95 and appropriate a body from a certain Baltimore cemetery," Mr. Pettit wrote in an article for the Philadelphia City Paper in October. "I’ll bring the shovel."

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All this talk about banned books (see my posts here and here about the controversy surrounding Republican VP pick Sarah Palin), got me thinking about ways to prevent books from being banned. There’s nothing worse than a government trying to censor what the public reads. Books are meant to be read.

And as many of you know, I’m a huge fan of ebooks. So I did a little research into how ebooks can help prevent those who want to ban books from public libraries, bookstores and other places, like Sarah Palin did, and keep books available for anyone to read. When you think about it, ebooks really are a perfect solution to keeping the power of choice firmly in the hands of the reader, where it belongs.

I came across this post from Epublishers Weekly from earlier this year that outlines 30 benefits of ebooks over print. And sure enough, at # 37, they hit the nail on the head:

Ebooks defeat attempts at censorship. All these works were banned: Analects by Confucius. Lysistrata by Aristophanes. Ars Amorata by Ovid. Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio by John Milton. The Scarlet Letter by Hawthorne. Wonder Stories by H.C. Andersen. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Ulysses
by James Joyce. … Many of these books were confiscated, burned, or denied availability in libraries, bookstores and schools. Ebooks guarantee that readers maintain their right to read.

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And the hits just keep on coming! I only say that because the story about Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin wanting to ban certain books from the library has taken root and is garnering more attention across the internet (especially the blogosphere). I wrote about it in this post, and generally felt disgusted that someone would want to actually deny the pubic specific books because that person found the books objectionable to his/her beliefs.

Then, this evening as I was blindly surfing the web, I came across a list of books Palin wanted removed from the public library. I emphasize the word "public" because that’s what is important – a public library that is supposed to serve the public, including people of all beliefs and creeds. If a book is found offensive by a person, then don’t check that book out!

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I’m not one to dive much into politics on this blog, there are too many political blogs to count if you’re looking for your politics fix. However, given that it is an election year and this next election will very much decide the new (or same) course the country will take, I can’t help but chime in now and then. And when the issue is libraries and books, you can bet I’ll have something to say.

News reports continue to surface about the past of the McCain presidential VP nominee Sarah Palin. Most of the reports are disturbing, to say the least. The latest sent a shiver down my spine as I read this article on CNN’s Time website that Palin wanted certain books banned from the library when she was mayor of a small Alaskan town:

Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. "She asked the library how she could go about banning books," he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. "The librarian was aghast." That woman, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn’t be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving "full support" to the mayor.

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When American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald died on December 21, 1940, he had seen incredible success as a novelist and short story writer, but had failed to leave a mark on the movie scene in Hollywood. He wrote several screenplays, mostly in an effort to try to pull himself out of financial troubles (read more here).

Fast forward to 2008 and Fitzgerald is still trying to make it big in Hollywood – or, at least, his estate is. According to this article from Publishers Weekly, his estate is trying to turn some of his famous novels and even a few short stories into movies:

In December, audiences will see Brad Pitt and Cate Winslett appear in the David Fincher-helmed adaptation of the author’s little-known short story, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." And, with Hollywood options on several other Fitzgerald properties, there may soon be a swell of material about, and by, the romantic and doomed Jazz Age writer.

But it keeps getting better:

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Back in March I wrote this post about  a new law in Indiana that would require retailers to register with the state if they (the retailers) sold material that was considered "sexually explicit." Registering meant that retailers would have to pay a $250 registration fee and provide detail to the state about the types of sexually explicit material to be sold.

Well, in a clear victory for freedom of speech/expression, a judge shot the law down pretty quickly. Here’s a snippet from this Publishers Weekly article:

Judge Sarah Evans Baker (who also struck down, in 1984, an anti-pornography law) said in her ruling that the law has too vast a reach "as written." She elaborated: "A romance novel sold at a drugstore, a magazine offering sex advice in a grocery store checkout line, an R-rated DVD sold by a video rental shop, a collection of old Playboy magazines sold by a widow at a garage sale–all incidents of unquestionably lawful, non-obscene, non-pornographic material being sold to adults–would appear to necessitate registration under the statute." Ultimately, Judge Baker said that "such a vague mandate will be unduly burdensome" and "will have a chilling effect on expression."

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Last week I finished reading Harry, Revised by blogger Mark Sarvas (from The Elegant Variation). Since I made a big deal about receiving the book on my front doorstep in this previous post, I thought it’s only fair that I write a few words about the novel.

First, I must say that in the beginning Harry Rent (the protagonist) is a very unlikeable character. Who goes to a diner and hits on Molly the waitress on the day of their dead wife’s funeral? Much of the stuff Harry does in the beginning of the novel is quite selfish and he comes off as very uncaring. Even when he tries to be a "good guy" by helping out the very overweight and unattractive Lucille (another waitress at the diner), he’s doing it merely to impress Molly. Of course, the reality of his plan is much different than what he conjures up in his overactive imagination.

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A little over a year ago I wrote a post about plot vs. character-based fiction (read it here). I basically made the point that "literary fiction" is more character-based, whereas genre (mainstream) fiction is more plot based.

But recently, I was doing a little wikisurfing and I came across this Wikipedia entry for literary fiction. While Wikipedia is not the definitive source of information for any topic, it does give a pretty good overview of what literary fiction is. Aside from what I mentioned above, literary fiction generally has these "properties" that define it as "literary":

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