From Reuters:

BOSTON (Reuters) - Political scientist Samuel Huntington, whose controversial book “The Clash of Civilizations” predicted conflict between the West and the Islamic world, has died at age 81, Harvard University said on Saturday.

Huntington, who taught for 58 years at Harvard before retiring in 2007, died Wednesday at a nursing facility in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, the university said on its website.

In his 1996 “The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order,” which expanded on his 1993 article in Foreign Affairs magazine, Huntington divided the world into rival civilizations based mainly on religious traditions such as Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Confucianism and said competition and conflict among them was inevitable.

Found an interesting piece in today’s New York Times on the impending demise of the book industry.

David Streitfeld begins “Bargain Hunting for Books, and Feeling Sheepish About It” by recounting the woes of the business:

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Book publishers and booksellers are full of foreboding — even more than usual for an industry that’s been anticipating its demise since the advent of television. The holiday season that just ended is likely to have been one of the worst in decades. Publishers have been cutting back and laying off. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt announced that it wouldn’t be acquiring any new manuscripts, a move akin to a butcher shop proclaiming it had stopped ordering fresh meat.

Bookstores, both new and secondhand, are faltering as well. Olsson’s, the leading independent chain in Washington, went bankrupt and shut down in September. Robin’s, which says it is the oldest bookstore in Philadelphia, will close next month. The once-mighty Borders chain is on the rocks. Powell’s, the huge store in Portland, Ore., said sales were so weak it was encouraging its staff to take unpaid sabbaticals.

Obviously the publishing and bookselling industries are suffering at the hands of the ubiquitous recession, yes?

Not so fast:

Don’t blame this carnage on the recession or any of the usual suspects, including increased competition for the reader’s time or diminished attention spans. What’s undermining the book industry is not the absence of casual readers but the changing habits of devoted readers.

In other words, it’s all the fault of people like myself, who increasingly use the Internet both to buy books and later, after their value to us is gone, sell them. This is not about Amazon peddling new books at discounted prices, which has been a factor in the book business for a decade, but about the rise of a worldwide network of amateurs who sell books from their homes or, if they’re lazy like me, in partnership with an Internet dealer who does all the work for a chunk of the proceeds.

Check out the entire article here.

From the YouTube description:

Part 2 of an interview with Elmore Leonard, the 2008 F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Conference awardee. The prolific author discusses his career with host Michael Brown of Montgomery College Television.

Part 1

Rosenblat Holocaust memoir update (previous coverage): Publisher pulls the plug. (thanks, Michael)

The Dallas Morning News presents a look back at literature in 2008, much of it with a Texas twist.

Melanie Thernstrom, writing for the New York Times, looks back at her relationship with poet Jason Shinder and how the looming specter of death influenced his work.

After a year dominated by non-fiction, The Guardian’s William Skidelsky predicts a comeback for storytelling in 2009.

R.I.P. Hillary Waugh

Somehow, I’ve never managed to link a horror review!  So sorry.  Monsters & Critics bestow the coveted term ‘page-turner’ to L.M. Maynard and M.P.N Sims’ (what’s with all the initials?) BLACK CATHEDRAL.

Monsters & Critics also features a book for the there-but-the-grace-of-god set in DEADLY DECISIONS: HOW FALSE KNOWLEDGE SANK THE TITANIC, BLEW UP THE SPACE SHUTTLE, AND LED AMERICA INTO WAR by Christopher Burns.

SEE YOU IN A HUNDRED YEARS chronicles a young American family’s turn at pretending to live for a year in days gone by.

All the proceeds from WHERE IS SIMON, SANDY? go to a museum foundation, so you can entertain your children and help a cause.  Nice and easy.

From the YouTube description:

Part 1 of a four part interview with legendary author, Elmore Leonard, the 2008 F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Conference Awardee. The prolific author discusses his career with host Michael Brown of Montgomery College Television.

Another Holocaust memoir hoax? The New Republic investigates (here, here and here); author defends.

“Revolutionary Road” brings Richard Yates back into the spotlight.

Seven novelists, six poets, five short story writers and three critics win India’s coveted National Sahitya Akademi awards.

West End actors pay on stage tribute to Harold Pinter.

R.I.P. Dale Wasserman

“English usage is sometimes more than mere taste, judgment and education—sometimes it’s sheer luck, like getting across the street.”

- E.B. White

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Some people just need this book - STREET GANG: THE COMPLETE HISTORY OF ‘SESAME STREET’, by Michael Davis.

Feeling entreprenurial?  Here’s a top ten (for 2008) of business books.

HUMAN LANDSCAPES FROM MY COUNTRY is a different sort of epic poem.  And it’s not new.  But blogcritics.org’s Richard Marcus does a thorough job of endorsing Nazim Himet’s masterwork.

Who doesn’t know someone who would well and truly get this book after they got it - THE ELFISH GENE: MEMOIR OF A D&D OBSESSED ADOLESCENCE?  The Christian Science Monitor laughed out loud (wait, can a magazine do that?) at Mark Barrowcliffe’s mage’s eye view of coming-of-age in a world without proper dragons.

TIME Magazine asks the author 10 questions from her fans:

The Star looks at the changing of the guard in Canadian literature.

The Guardian’s John Crace presents his 2008 book quiz.

Carol Ann Duffy remembers Harold Pinter.

The New York Times examines the “intersection of poetry and politics” at inaugural readings.

The literary losses of 2008.

“When virtuosity gets the upper hand of your theme, or is better than your idea, it is time to quit.”

- Katherine Anne Porter

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A page of self-help reviews from Library Journal could come in handy for the impending resolution-making season.

Kirkus proclaims Jesse Ball’s, THE WAY THROUGH DOORS, a bit of a headscratcher - not that there’s anything wrong with that.

It’s something to be five miles from the base of a mountain and not be able to see it.  I took a picture of that very thing once to remind myself.  Now, SMOGTOWN: THE LUNG-BURNING HISTORY OF POLLUTION IN LOS ANGELES, by Amanda Fortini, will give that photo more reference.

Read the book before you see the movie of the-next-big-thing in fantasy.  Here’s part four of the series, LEVEN THUMPS AND THE WRATH OF EZRA, in Foreward Magazine.

Merry Christmas to all celebrants!

And for everyone else, we hope that having most everything closed is more peaceful than boring and inconvenient.

Season’s greetings and thanks so much for peeking in, throughout our inaugural year, to keep up with literary news and book reviews.  We hope that these, along with our other daily features, have kept current your love of the written word, as they do for us as we compile them.

Sky News report on the death of Harold Pinter:

Harold Pinter
(1930 - 2008)

British playwright Pinter dead at 78: wife, agent (AFP)
Harold Pinter - the master of suspense - leaves the stage (TopNews)
Playwright Harold Pinter dies age 78 (Reuters)
Nobel-winning playwright Harold Pinter dies at 78 (AP)
Renowned U.K. Jewish playwright Harold Pinter dies aged 78 (Haaretz)
Harold Pinter 1930-2008 (The First Post)

Author, Michael Pollan, gives people who eat food in the Western world (oh dear, that’s me, too) a stern talking to in, IN DEFENSE OF FOOD: AN EATER’S MANIFESTO.

Here’s a list of pop-up books for gift consideration, as the last shopping hours before Christmas wind their way down.  I received a pop-up version of JABBERWOCKY when I was twenty-two and it was the coolest present I got that year.  So, something to consider…

I don’t come across reviews this glowing everyday, so I’m happy to pass along Marty Dodge’s (of blogcritics.org) standing ovation of Roger L. Simon’s, BLACKLISTING MYSELF: MEMOIR OF A HOLLYWOOD APOSTATE IN THE AGE OF TERROR.

And THE BEST AUSTRALIAN POEMS 2008, edited by Peter Rose, gets a mixed review in The Independent Weekly.

Dylan Thomas’s “A Child’s Christmas in Wales”:

Part 1:

Part 2: