On the one hand, the Daily Mail reports that the Education Secretary of the UK says that classic literature is dying out in schools. Michael Gove says that “barely one in 100 studied books published before 1900.” The article says that only 1,236 of the 300,000 pupils who took the most popular English literature exam …
In The Guardian, Rick Gekoski elegantly makes the point that literary culture is disappearing. “Supposing that we were back in the year 1974, and playing a game of Humiliation (later made popular in David Lodge‘s Changing Places) in which you earn points by naming books that you haven’t read and which you think the other …
In Britain, Borders UK has gone into administration, as they call bankruptcy, and the other big chains, most notably Waterstone’s, are not asking for whom the bell tolls. Meanwhile, in the US, both Borders and Barnes & Noble both posted quarterly losses, and, according to the AP, both “forecast a difficult holiday season, saying competition …