John Baker’s Blog

At the Times Online Ben Macintyre considers the art of a good book title
The words that matter most in any book, of course, are neither at the beginning nor the end, but on the front cover. Would great books have become great books had they been called something else? In 1924, a young writer sent [...]

Blue Girls
Twirling your blue skirts, travelling the sward
Under the towers of your seminary,
Go listen to your teachers old and contrary
Without believing a word.
Tie the white fillets then about your hair
And think no more of what will come to pass
Than bluebirds that go walking on the grass
And chattering on the air.
Practice your beauty, blue girls, [...]

This is heartbreaking stuff from Jane Austen Doe:
By the end of this story I will have broken the most sacred rules of modern authordom. I’ll tell you how much my publishers have paid me for the books I’ve written. I’ll tell you how many copies each of those books has sold. I’ll share with you [...]

Katie Couric for CBS Evening News asked the presidential candidates what book they would bring with them to the White House. I fell asleep reading the answers:
John McCain, Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith
Barack Obama, Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin - a biography of Lincoln
Mitt Romney, John Adams by David McCullough
Mick Huckabee, Whatever [...]