California Literary Review

Teacher proclaims Twain, Lee and Steinbeck irrelevant in Obama age: “The time has arrived to update the literature we use in high school classrooms. Barack Obama is [president] of the United States, and novels that use the ‘N-word’ repeatedly need to go,” [Guardian]

Publishers Shed More Than 1,200 Jobs in 2008: Consolidations, recession take their toll [Publishers Weekly]

Google & the Future of Books: here is a proposal that could result in the world’s largest library. It would, to be sure, be a digital library, but it could dwarf the Library of Congress and all the national libraries of Europe. Moreover, in pursuing the terms of the settlement with the authors and publishers, Google could also become the world’s largest book business—not a chain of stores but an electronic supply service that could out-Amazon Amazon. [NYRB]

Could a Press End Up on Chopping Block?: But Utah State’s press is in a less than celebratory mood these days. Despite an outstanding reputation as a small press that has managed to make significant contributions in composition studies, folklore, poetry, environmental studies, and the history and culture of the West, press officials say they were told last week that the university could eliminate its subsidy for the press’s operations [Inside Higher Ed]

The Greatest Literary Show on Earth: Now in its third year, the Jaipur Literature Festival brings the voices of India and Pakistan together in peace. [Daily Beast]

What George Orwell would make of our financial ‘apocalypse’: As we stagger helplessly into the swallowing fog of financial apocalypse , allow me to float an idea. It’s not a solution so much as a palliative. Every one of us, man, woman and child across the land, should read or re-read The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell. [Telegraph]

Hail to the reader in chief: Barack Obama: Barack Obama, a Celtic African American with a golden tongue and a golden pen, will not be the first literary president. [San Francisco Chronicle]