The Life and Times of a Navy Husband

1. The Newsweek article got pushed back two weeks.
2. I’m a dad! Posting will be…sporadic. As usual.

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I can’t believe I missed this:
“The Uncommon Reader” [by Alan Bennett] posits the theory that the right book at the right time can ignite a lifelong habit. (For the fictional queen, it’s Nancy Mitford’s “Pursuit of Love.”) This is a romantic ideal that persists among many a bibliophile.
-A Good Mystery: Why We Read – New [...]

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I’ve just been interviewed for a piece in Newsweek about military husbands. It should hit the web on Sunday and the newsstands on Monday. It’ll be out for two weeks because of Christmas.
It was a good interview. I don’t know how much they’ll use, but it was a lot of fun. I’ll link to it [...]

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Is it just me, or does this seemed doomed to fail?
[The 39 Clues] is also Scholastic’s attempt to create a branded franchise for which it owns all the rights. Ms. Rowling retained the rights to the Harry Potter series, which meant that she could pursue separate deals for film and other licensed products, effectively cutting [...]

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[T]he key point in the business is that the investment is made in the wrong areas in the business, and I think that quality—which is more valuable over time—has been undervalued, and quantity—which is less valuable over time—has been overvalued. And I think this is a reaction to the dominance of the influence of the [...]

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I certainly noticed a lack of excitement and energy in 2007 with regard to fiction. According to Los Angeles Times article, the trouble wasn’t limited to fiction.
The hard pill for publishing to swallow may have its origins in a parenthetical statistic from the article:
Roughly 200,000 titles were published this year.
Is the publishing industry’s attempt to [...]

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This bad review elicited a particularly sinister laugh from yours truly. It’s so satisfying to read something truthful and brutal.

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It’s been snowing continuously for the past three hours. The sky is the color of wet cement.

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“The snow doesn’t give a soft white damn whom it touches.”
- E.E. Cummings

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April 11, 1975
Dear Mr. Buckley:
I am a teacher with credentials in English, political science, history, mathematics, humanities, and Japanese, and yet I barely have the ability to decipher your vulgar prose. I can’t recall ever having seen such an obvious search for and display of archaic vocabulary and overall obfuscation in an apparent attempt [...]

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