Author Jodi Picoult will be discussing her latest work "Sing You Home" at 7 p.m. tonight with @thebook maven.  Watch it live here.

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I like to be swept away by a novel.
I read for a whole lot of reasons.
I read to learn. I read to expand my understanding of the human experience. And I read to escape.
Nothing beats cracking open a book and immediately losing yourself in the characters and their circumstances. I compare it to that feeling in the theater when the lights go down and you are immersed.

Swept away I was by Douglas Kennedy's "The Pursuit of Happiness."
We open at a mother's funeral, where an unfamiliar woman puts Kate on edge. Her curiosity is dulled by her dealings with her somewhat estranged brother, her ex-husband and her young son.
We soon learn that this mysterious stranger claims to be the love of Kate's late father's life.
And their story unfolds.
What price does that pursuit of happiness carry? Who is hurt in our own pursuits? Our own betrayals?
These are the questions Kennedy raises; even as you're drawn to Sara and Jack, they are not entirely sympathetic characters.
When folks "do the right thing" in this tale, as in life, there is still collateral damage.
Recalls Kate of her mom:
"But I was too wrapped up in my own griefs; my own sense of having been betrayed by men, by circumstances, by life. Unlike my mother - who stayed silent for four decades about the betrayal that fractured her life and sent it on a difficult trajectory. No doubt, she also wanted to scream: me, me, me, me, me. But she never would have dreamed of articulating such a self-centered complaint."
That was just one of several paragraphs I paused to re-read in this novel. Not only doesn the sentiment give me pause, but the language itself is a marvel. (Just the right number of me's, don't you think?)
Another author added to my list of must-reads.

Check out a reading guide for the book here.

Who's on the edge of their seat with me awaiting the March 1 release of Jodi Picoult's latest "Sing You Home"? One of my new favorite authors Caroline Leavitt had the chance to interview Picoult about the book. Read it here.
-Tricia Ambrose

1. Slate fact-checked Picoult and Weiner’s accusations and tabulated if The New York Times reviews more men than women.

They do, almost two to one.

Of the 545 books reviewed between June 29, 2008 and Aug. 27, 2010:
—338 were written by men (62 percent of the total)
—207 were written by women (38 percent of the total)

Of the 101 books that received two reviews in that period:
—72 were written by men (71 percent)
—29 were written by women (29 percent)

Slate hesitated to conclude that the paper treated certain types of literature differently when they were written by men.

2. Meanwhile, Lincoln Michel of The Faster Times rebuts the claims by Picoult and Weiner that commercial fiction deserves more respect.

Somehow it isn’t enough that we are inundated with mass culture work—that the subways are plastered with ads for the latest formulaic thriller or romance, that Hollywood blockbuster trailers play non-stop on TV, that corporate record labels get their artists constant rotation on the radio—or that such work, as its fans and creators are always quick to point out, makes the most money 99% of the time. We also need Michael Bay winning Oscars, Twilight getting the Pulitzer, Justin Bieber and Katy Perry reviewed in favor of Big Boi or Animal Collective, and probably McDonald’s being reviewed by NYT food critics instead of whatever new Keith McNally restaurant has opened. After all, McDonald’s is where people are “actually eating.”

I don’t disagree with Michel’s assessment, but Big Boi is an awful example. He sold more than 20 million records as half of Outkast.

(Then again, I rolled my eyes when The Dark Knight didn’t get a Best Picture nomination from the Oscars.)

3. Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series is in the early stages of development for a television series. I have four thoughts.

One, I love Sandman and would love for other people to love Sandman. Without Sandman, I would have never read Lord Dunsany, Hope Mirrlees or Italo Calvino.

Two, a television series is preferable to a movie. There is no way to encapsulate all that makes Sandman wonderful in a 2-hour movie.

Three, I really hope this doesn’t suck. I didn’t love Watchmen, so I was OK with the mediocre, hyperviolent movie. But if Sandman sucks... I don’t know. I’ll complain about it on the Internet.

Four, Gaiman’s name is not yet attached to the series. It should be. Even if it’s only a respectful consultant position.

4. Borders will be putting Build-a-Bear stations into its bookstores.

The decision smacks of desperation but it makes some sense. They want to get kids into bookstores, but kids can easily download books. So dangle a carrot to get them inside the store — for example, an adorable, customized stuffed bear — and hope they buy a book or two while they are there.

Borders CEO Mike Edwards talked about tweaking the stores in an interview with Publishers Weekly.

Edwards clearly articulated the reason for adding more nonbook product—as more books are sold in digital formats, retailers need to redeploy the space they have used to sell trade titles. For Borders, that means adding more educational children’s toys and games, more adult games and puzzles, plus high-end stationery.

-Jason Lea, JLea@News-Herald.com

One more thing about Franzen, then I promise to leave him alone (at least, until I read Freedom.)

First, back story: Jonathan Franzen wrote Freedom. Critics fawned. They called it a masterpiece, genius and an epic.

Jennifer Wiener, an author of commercial women’s fiction (sometimes called “chick lit”) became sick of the fawning. She and Jodi Picoult claimed that critics unfairly favored certain authors and those authors are usually male.

In an interview with the Huffington Post, Wiener said, “I think it’s a very old and deep-seated double standard that holds that when a man writes about family and feelings, it’s literature with a capital L, but when a woman considers the same topics, it’s romance, or a beach book - in short, it’s something unworthy of a serious critic’s attention.”

The writers wanted to clarify that they were not grousing at Franzen. Instead, they were concerned about gender favoritism and the perceived schism between commercial and literary fiction.

Picoult said, “There’s that unwritten schism that literary writers get all the awards and commericals writers get all the success. I don’t begrudge the label of ‘commercial writer’, because I wanted to reach as many readers as I could. I read a lot of commercial fiction and a lot of the same themes and wisdoms I find in commercial fiction are the same themes and wisdoms as what i see lauded in literary fiction.”

Weiner went so far as to create the hashtag #franzenfreude, which she defined as, “Franzenfreude is taking pain in the multiple and copious reviews being showered on Jonathan Franzen.” (I thought franzenfreude was when you wanted to kill Jonathan Franzen and marry your mother. Also, what’s the difference between “multiple” and “copious?”)

As in most good debates, both sides have worthwhile perspectives.

Yes, the reviews for Freedom have verged on obsequious. However, without reading the book, I can’t tell you if it’s the emperor’s new clothes or justified praise. (Bear in mind, I didn’t like The Corrections; so Franzen’s charm is, at least, partly lost on me.)

Next, each artistic circle has its superstars. Music critics love Vampire Weekend and don’t understand why they don’t sell Katy Perry numbers. Millions of fans love Katy Perry and don’t understand why she doesn’t get Vampire Weekend respect.

Readers are no different. The majority of critics love Franzen and find most women’s commercial fiction interchangeable. Those who enjoy “chick lit” (my co-blogger, Tricia, for example) think it is unfairly maligned because of its subject matter and target audience.

These superstars can come from any gender, race or even sexual preference, though it might be easier for certain demographics to climb the mountain. Yes, Franzen gets a lot of love, but so do Margaret Atwood, Alice Walker and David Sedaris.

(It might be worthwhile to look through the New York Times’ book reviews to see what representation different genders and genres receive.)

Now, as per the differences between commercial and literary fiction, I’ve never read any Weiner. I can’t tell you if she’s a hack who sells a lot of books or an auteur whose merits are unfairly ignored.

I have, however, read some Picoult. While I can’t vouch for all 17 of her books, I enjoyed My Sister’s Keeper more than The Corrections.

This reminds me of when Amy Tan told Stephen King that nobody asked her about the language in her stories. (King relates this anecdote in the prologue of On Writing.) It’s great to be successful, she mused, but it would be better if people appreciated the handiwork, also.

Then again, how bad should we feel for these commercially successful writers? Bestselling authors are already a blessed and lucky few. It’s not enough that they have the job and royalty checks that everyone wants. Now, they want your respect.

Well, some deserve it. Dickens and Shakespeare were two of the most commercially successful authors from their respective eras, after all. But let’s make this clear, there is a difference between Katy Perry and Vampire Weekend. Moreover, there’s a difference between Katy Perry and Prince.

One wrote music that was designed to be popular. The other wrote music that became popular because it was so good.

-Jason Lea, JLea@News-Herald.com

I couldn't let the week pass without giving my 2 cents on books everyone should read before graduation high school, after Tricia and Jason.

I'll admit that I haven't read all of the books on the original list, nor Tricia's or Jason's. I'll agree with "Catcher in the Rye" (which I just read for the first time this year), but I'm not sure if I think the others they named should be required.

I'll add to my list F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby," which spurred in-depth conversations in my 11th-grade honors English class about symbolism and good writing. Since then, "Gatsby" has been one of my all-time favorite books.

I might also add to the list "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury, which I just read for the first time this week. My ninth-grade honors English class opted to read Bram Stoker's "Dracula" instead. The "Dracula" reading has come in handy for all the vampire knowledge I obtained (totally helpful when watching "Buffy the Vampire Slayer to know how vampires can be killed), but I missed out on Bradbury's classic that hammers home the importance of reading, learning and not censoring. I wish I would have read this book in high school.

I don't like that this list I made includes no female writers. Tricia's pick of "My Sister's Keeper" is a good one, in my opinion, because Jodi Picoult is a fantastic writer (seriously, Jason), and "My Sister's Keeper" may be my favorite book of hers. I also don't have any modern literature on this list. It's tough to keep it just to three books.

While I was trying to decide what books I would want to include on my list, all I could think about is how important it is for people to read -- no matter what they read. Literacy is a big key to success. We saw this in theaters with "Precious: Based on the novel 'Push' by Sapphire," when Precious and her classmates were encouraged to write whatever they wanted to write every day, and to read their journals to their classmates. Their teacher helped them improve their literacy skills, just from encouraging them to exercise them.

On a more personal note, a former roommate of mine did the same sort of exercise to help middle-schoolers during her student teaching in college. When she got to the school, several of the students were failing reading class. She told each student who was failing that they needed to come in either before school, during lunch or after school and read. She came in early, stayed late and ate lunch in the classroom to ensure that the kids would read. When they raised their grades, they did not have to come in any more; but many of them continued to do so. By the end of the school year, no one was failing -- all because their teacher asked them to sit and read.


-- Cheryl Sadler
CSadler@News-Herald.com

If you've been to a theater or watched television at all in recent weeks, you've seen the ads for "My Sister's Keeper" due out June 26. (Inc ase you've missed it ...watch a trailer.

It's an adaptation of one of my favorite recent novels by Jodi Picoult.

"Keeper" is the story of a girl conceived to save her ailing older sister seeking legal freedom from her parents.

It's a powerful novel.

I wonder if the film, which stars Abigail Breslin, Alec Baldwin and Cameron Diaz, will live up to its source material.

I'm willing to give it a try. While I prefer books to movies generally, there have been some films that certainly did justice to their novels.

I think of classics like "Rebecca" (what can I say it is my favorite) and "Gone with the Wind."

I think of more recent works like "Mystic River" and "Atonement."

There have been some disappointments to be sure. Did anyone see "The Secret Life of Bees?"

And then there are those works that fall in the middle. For me, it's the screen versions of the Harry Potter books.

The movies are entertaining and if I hadn't read the books, I'm sure I'd rave. But so much of the charm of J.K. Rowling's works is in its cleverness. Who didn't smile the first time they read Diagon Alley?

It's just not the same experience on film.

What do you think? Is there a movie adaptation you loved? hated?

- Tricia Ambrose