Clinton spreading word on the need for books

DelMio.com (MCT) - When former president Bill Clinton spoke recently before the Association of American Publishers in New York City, he focused on the economy and the new stimulus plan approved by Congress.

For publishers, nothing is more important _ especially given industry consolidation as a result of economic pressure and new technologies that threaten the market for printed books.

Clinton's very speech _ about the complexities of the economy _ reinforced why we need books. His point: That books are as important as ever in our age of blogs and Tweets, because facts alone aren't enough; we also need "perspective and linear argument."

"You ought to feel that you are in a noble profession," Clinton told publishers. "You ought to pollute it as a little as you can and make some money. ... I don't care what will happen with technology, we'll all still need to read."

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Is Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's statesmanship so great, that despite the mark of scandals in Chappaquiddick and Palm Beach, his legacy will be on par with that of Daniel Webster?

So says Peter S. Canellos, the Boston Globe Washington bureau chief and editor of a new biography on Kennedy. The book, "Last Lion: The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy," is by a team of Boston Globe writers who covered Kennedy over the years. It includes previously unpublished family letters and interviews.

Speaking of Kennedy's nearly five-decade legislative career, Canellos told The New York Times via e-mail: "There's no question in my mind that he's the greatest legislator in American history. That sounds like a glib superlative. But when you do all the research _ and we did _ there's really no other conclusion."

Kennedy's quip to a family member, when told about the Webster comparison: "What did Webster do?"

The book suggests that after Chappaquiddick, Kennedy spent the rest of his life soul searching, as he also took on the role of father figure to 13 nieces and nephews who had no fathers.

Meanwhile, Kennedy's own memoir is scheduled for release this fall, sooner than originally planned. The book, titled "True Compass," reportedly fetched an $8 million advance for the Massachusetts Democrat. Part of the proceeds will go to charity.

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A note on novelist James Purdy, who died in New Jersey last week at age 94:

In a 2005 New York Times essay, American novelist and playwright Gore Vidal commented on why Purdy received limited success and acclaim for his dark and sometimes comic fiction, with subjects ranging from ghosts to gays.

"The walls of Jericho remained standing and still stand to this day despite a unique and varied body of work," wrote Vidal. "But then certain writers are simply not allowed to pass because, at some level, they genuinely disturb, causing the Confederacy of Dunces to cart away their most vivid works like so many pillars of salt to be set up in that deadly desert that separates our Oz from the real world."

Purdy once offered this explanation: "Reputations are made here, as in Russia, on political respectability or commercial acceptability. The worse the author, the more he is known."

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ABOUT THE WRITER

Diane Evans is a former Knight Ridder columnist and is now president of DelMio.com, a new interactive online magazine on books for writers and readers.

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