what writers are these?

Because they'd be going on the bottom of the TBR pile, if they're in it at all. I don't know whether the rest of the logic in the Christian Science Monitor piece by Gail Vida Hamburg is bollocks, to be British about it, but there's a couple of paragraphs in here that raised my eyebrows.

"And writers - too aware that their books must sell in the first three weeks or end up on the remaindered table - are obliged to focus on promoting their books rather than engaging in literary conversations. Authors almost never discuss their books in the context of the family of books that precede their own, or reference the work of other writers and the classics that inspire them, or other aspects their reading lives.This is a pity, because good writers are unusually passionate and eloquent about books."

Huh? I hear writers doing this all the time, in fact, it's almost a direct correlation to the quality of their own writing.

(Via TEV, who has about a hundred posts this morning you should go read.)

Off to take George to the vet for his yearly check-up.