When Ulysses were first published in the 1920's, it was confiscated for being obscene. Ninety years later, Apple seemed to take the same tack, asking developers of an illustrated iPad Ulysses app to remove pages that contained nudity, before backing down, just in time for Bloomsday. Today is indeed the day to celebrate all things Ulysses, with Tablet sponsoring a reading featuring Joshua Cohen and Ben Greenman (among others), "putting the Bloom in Bloomsday," and Symphony Space is hosting Bloomsday on Broadway.
What Americans used to read: the Top 10 lists for the years 1990, 1980, 1970, etc., down to 1910.
We all know of the "Bump,” where authors see the sale of their books skyrocket after appearing on The Colbert Report. (Colbert also inspired the creation of Wikiality, "the Truthiness Encyclopedia".) Glenn Beck inspired his own "Beck Bump" after he talked on his show about what he described as “quite possibly the most evil thing I’ve ever read,” The Coming Insurrection, published in 2007, which shot up to #7 at Amazon and #14 at Barnes and Noble back in February after the show aired. Last week, Beck interviewed Colleen Sheehan, a professor in the department of political science at Villanova University, who published James Madison and the Spirit of Republican Self-Government. Expect sales of that book to climb this week, too. None of these books, however, will hold a candle to Beck's novel The Overton Window; USA Today interviews Beck about the new book that has his name on it—but did he actually write it? In the interview he says, "there's clearly no way that I'm sitting behind a typewriter or word program and pounding this out. . . . I have my vision and need someone to make sure that vision stays there." Beck at least admits someone else wrote the thing; ghostwriting used to be book publishing’s dirty little secret.
