Story of the Week
- “The Lady in the Bookcase,” James Thurber – week of April 23, 2010
- “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment,” Nathaniel Hawthorne – June 27, 2011
- “I’ll Be Waiting,” Raymond Chandler – December 6, 2010
- “The Little Room,” Madeline Yale Wynne – October 18, 2010
- “Hunting the Deceitful Turkey,” Mark Twain – November 19, 2010
- “The Train,” Flannery O’Connor – October 4, 2010
- “The Christmas Fireside (for Good Little Boys and Girls),” Mark Twain – December 17, 2010
- “An Interview with Mark Twain,” Rudyard Kipling – April 16, 2010
- “What It Means to be Colored in the Capital of the United States,” Mary Church Terrell – January 14, 2011
- “A Box to Hide In,” James Thurber – June 17, 2011
Another surprise in the rankings is the Nathaniel Hawthorne tale about “the hubris of science and the idea of eternal youth.” It mailed just last week and it’s #2! Is this really the perfect summertime read? Or perhaps it confirms our readers’ taste for the macabre? The ghoulish stories clustered near the top nevertheless show a discriminating range: from Madeline Yale Wynne’s disturbing little gem to ominous classics by Raymond Chandler and Flannery O’Connor. And speaking of life beyond the grave, we know nothing would please this year’s bestselling deceased author Mark Twain more than dominating this list with three entries—except perhaps being #1.
Reader’s Almanac
- The Best-Selling Titles in The Library of America’s First Three Decades – January 3, 2011
- Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and Bob Dylan: Desolation Angels led to “Desolation Row” – October 21, 2010
- Vladimir Nabokov: Lolita first published in the U.S. 52 years ago – August 18, 2010
- Forthcoming from The Library of America (Summer—Fall 2011) – February 7, 2011
- Andy Borowitz’s marketing copy for The Library of America: “Does being funny get you girls?” – March 17, 2011
- Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn, and How to Sell a Banned Book – September 29, 2010
- Adam Levin: American literary influences on The Instructions – January 19, 2011
- Elaine Showalter on Philip Roth, Albert Camus, and plagues – October 20, 2010
- Zora Neale Hurston: Video of her ethnographic work in Florida in 1928 – July 26, 2010
- James Baldwin on hearing Martin Luther King preach in Montgomery – January 14, 2011
The popularity of two posts—one on Kerouac, Ginsberg and Dylan; another on Zora Neale Hurston—seem driven as much by the accompanying videos as by the text. If you know of a compelling video on a literary subject, please bring it to our attention. We’d love to add it to our Library of America YouTube channel, and possibly also include it in a blog post.
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