This Week in Reading Dec. 28, 2008 - Jan 3, 2009

This week is the last Monday-to-Friday week of the year. As you’ve noticed, we now have arranged the lists to which we link you from This Week in Reading as if there were only four weeks in a month. As we have now completed the year of authors whose books are in our library, next year the blog post referring to the list may show up only four times a month as well. We will work on correcting and adding any other authors who have been left off or who newly receive some level of prominence.

That said, the main event to read about this week, of course, is the coming of the New Year. It starts off colorfully enough with the always dependable Rose Parade and the Rose Bowl wherein we expect a dependable ninth straight Pac 10 victory. And, like many of us, London’s Samuel Pepys, who ought to be the patron saint of bloggers, began his famous diary on the first day of the year, in his case 1660, but unlike most of us he kept it going for ten years thus creating a wonderful historical resource for later readers. If you start a diary this year, why not make it into a daily record of your reactions not just to what you see and hear but also to what you read? Who knows what you may end up with, material for a book of your own, of for a blog, or comments to share with others?

It's another week big on initials for big authors, some of whom we’ll revisit next week (because they're in January), include 1907 Nobelist Rudyard Kipling, E. M. Forster, J R. R. Tolkien, Mortimer Adler, Isaac Asimov, and J. D. Salinger with novelists Robert Ruark, William Gaddis, and Nicholas Sparks.

This Week’s Question: J.D. Salinger, notoriously shy of publicity, will turn ninety this year and many will try to get him to say something publicly about his work which hasn’t been seen in years. Some are even suggesting he may have written novels he does not intend to publish in his lifetime. If that were true, last week’s posthumous Pulitzer may not be the only one. In addition to his ground breaking book, the adolescent anthem A Catcher in the Rye, he has written a series of novels and stories about a particularly quirky family which includes a prodigy which may or may not be reflective of his own peculiarities. What is the name of that family?

Answer to Last Week’s Question: The stylist who did not believe in style was controversial novelist, Big Sur denizen Henry Miller.

Happy New Year!