1. According to Forbes, one in every 17 novels purchased in the United States lists James Patterson as its author.

(Note, I did not say he wrote them.)

That’s an incredible statistic. I won’t bother saying if I think Patterson saturation is a good or a bad thing. However, I do want to know if this is unprecedented.

When Michael Crichton, Nora Roberts or Stephen King were at the zenith of their popularity, did they ever dominate the market as Patterson has?

J.K. Rowling and Dan Brown may write more popular books, but I don’t think they are prolific enough to keep up with Patterson’s numbers. Rowling wrote seven books. Patterson (with his posse) writes about eight a year. One can only buy so many copies of The Deathly Hallows. Patterson has grabbed an astonishing market share by constantly feeding his fans new fodder.

There aren’t many surprises in Forbes’ highest-paid authors’ list. All the expected faces appear. Stephenie Meyer, King, Danielle Steel and Ken Follett finish the top five.

2. One of Langston Hughes’s Cleveland homes has been condemned, but that does not mean it will be demolished.

Hughes stayed in five different homes while he lived in Cleveland. Three have been destroyed. Two have been condemned.

3. “It is overwhelmingly nauseating, even to an enlightened Freudian. To the public, it will be revolting. It will not sell, and will do immeasurable harm to a growing reputation ... I recommend that it be buried under a stone for a thousand years.”

The Library of America looks back on the history or Lolita. Vladimir Nabokov’s best known work has a success story fit for this century. It didn’t become popular until critics complained it was smut.



4. @GrammarHulk and @EditorHulk have clarified. They are different Hulks. As are @FeministHulk, @LonelyHulk, @DrunkHulk and the legion of other gamma-powered superheroes who invaded Twitter.

5. Jimmy Carter is scheduled to appear at Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Legacy Village on Sept. 28 to sign his new book, White House Diary. Line tickets are required, limited and available by purchasing a copy of White House Diary at Joseph-Beth.
Carter, in addition to being a Nobel Peace Prize winner and former president, is a prolific author. He has written more than 20 books.

-Jason Lea, JLea@News-Herald.com

P.S. Tricia, if you're looking for a detective story, I'd recommend The Man Who Was Thursday. I think that would qualify. The main character is a detective who's pursuing what he thinks is a dangerous anarchist. Yes, the novel has fantastic and metaphysical trappings, but it still counts, right?

It’s not a hangover if you’re still drunk.

Welcome to the belated melange.

Philip Roth, Malcolm Gladwell and Bill Simmons all have new books. But what am I most excited about? Stephen King.

Under the Dome has received some enthusiastic reviews, and I’ve had a soft spot for the guy ever since I stole a copy of his autobiography/advice manual, On Writing, from the hotel where I was honeymooning. (King’s advice to young writers: write a lot and expect rejection.)

I’m procuring a copy of “Dome” as soon as I finish “Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip-Hop.”

A nonprofit community development group bought one of Langston Hughes’s old Cleveland homes. As you may recall, the bank had foreclosed on it earlier this year.

The development group, The Fairfax Renaissance Development Corp., might renovate the house for sale or possibly set up a Langston Hughes Museum if another nonprofit organization is willing to buy or rent the house.

Jay Garner, the group’s community development director, said, “Langston Hughes represented a big part of the cultural heritage of this city.”

I’m not sure if I buy that. Langston Hughes is, was, will always be the man. But I couldn’t tell you what his cultural impact on Cleveland — specifically, Cleveland — was. He was vital part of the Harlem Renaissance. He published his Simple columns in the Chicago Defender. But what pieces of art did Cleveland drive him to write?

Finally, for something completely different, McSweeney’s presents The Police Blotter Shakespeare.

-Jason Lea, JLea@News-Herald.com

Langston Hughes’s former Harlem residence has landmark status. The Cleveland home where he spent part of his teen years has been foreclosed.

If life isn’t unfair, at least it’s consistent.

Hughes lived at the house on East 86th Street from 1917 to 1919, until he graduated from high school. Now, Wells Fargo Bank has purchased it for $16,667.

The house may have slipped into anonymity were it not for Christopher Busta-Peck, a librarian at the Hough Branch of the Cleveland Public Library.

Busta-Peck discovered the house’s history while trying to find something to interest the young readers he worked with at the library. He used a two-tome Hughes biography, written by Arnold Rampersad, to locate five different houses Hughes lived in during his tenure in Cleveland. Three of the houses have been destroyed. The two remaining homes are on East 86th Street.

Busta-Peck said he did not necessarily want to see the Hughes house turned into a museum like the restored Glenville home where Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster created Superman. He guessed the house probably did not have anything left from the days of Hughes’s habitation. He just wants to see the house preserved.

“It’s a good house. It’s a basic 1890s Cleveland vernacular Victorian house,” he said.

Busta-Peck said the house had some ugly siding, but it was far from a lost cause.

Wells Fargo has indicated that it wants to sell the house as quickly as possible. I realize there aren’t a lot of people with $20,000 worth of disposable income and a Langston Hughes Museum probably wouldn’t be huge money; but it would be a shame if that piece of history fell to the bulldozers.

-Jason Lea, JLea@News-Herald.com

I don’t bother with most poetry. I rarely “get” it.

That’s not a criticism of the art form or an opinion of its worth. Poetry's just not what I usually grab from the bookshelf.

I am a storyteller, professionally. I make my living telling nonfiction stories.

Sure, they tend to be stories about criminals or fact-filled features and they rarely last longer than one day before they are recycled, but they are stories nonetheless.

Consequently, I have little use for obfuscated language or symbolism for symbolism’s sake, and poetry is more prone to indulge in that than prose.

But I’ve always loved Langston Hughes. Of course, Langston wrote a lot more than poetry. His short stories and columns, featuring the appropriately named Simple, prove that if you can write, you can write anything.

However—in the same way that Paul McCartney will always be remembered as one-fourth of the Beatles, no matter what Wings did—Langston will always be remembered for his poetry.

My affection for the man is simple. He wrote words to songs that didn’t exist. And while I don’t always “get” poetry, I understand music.

Before I wrote stories, I played jazz piano. I hear the harmonic intervals in a laugh. I tap syncopated snare lines on my desk when I’m nervous. Lo-kan-kan-pi-kan-kan. I wandered onto a backstreet during my honeymoon, so I could buy bootleg Lucky Dube CDs.

I can’t get through my 15-minute commute to work without McCoy Tyner or Isaac Hayes or Wu-Tang or The Clash.

And Langston—more than any other writer I know—understands where music and poetry converge.

When I read “The Weary Blues,” I can hear the drowsy syncopated tune. And it’s not just the subject matter. His pacing, his rhythm. I can hear the chords shift. One-Four-One-Four-Five.

To the tune o’ those Weary Blues.
With his ebony hands on each ivory key
He made that poor piano moan with melody

Then, Langston hits you with a horn stab.

O Blues!

Langston wrote blues. He wrote swingers, he wrote spirituals, he wrote ballads. He wrote the sweetest love songs nobody sang.

I would liken you
To a night without stars
Were it not for your eyes.

Then, just as the music was changing, Langston changed too. When, melody and swing gave away to complexity and lightning-on-methamphetamine licks, Langston decided to write bebop.

With “Montage of a Dream Deferred,” he wrote a poem that could have been a laboratory child constructed from the spliced genes of Charlie Parker, Gwendolyn Brooks and George Gershwin.

Down in the bass
That easy roll
Rolling like I like it
In my soul
Riffs, smears, breaks.

So I can die not “getting” poetry; because, if I have Langston Hughes, I’ll always have music.

-Jason Lea, JLea@News-Herald.com

P.S. Next time, I finish my Black History month series with Richard Wright.