Penguin and Random House Reach Agreement, Hurricane Sandy Reading List, and More

Every day Poets & Writers Magazine scans the headlines—from publishing reports to academic announcements to literary dispatches—for all the news that creative writers need to know. Here are today's stories:

Penguin and Random House have reached an agreement to combine—creating the largest book publisher in the world. (Wall Street Journal)

With Hurricane Sandy lashing much of the East Coast, it's best to stay home with a good book—Flavorpill has an essential stormy weather reading list.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth Kolbert writes of the timing of this hurricane: "Coming as it is just a week before Election Day, Sandy makes the fact that climate change has been entirely ignored during this campaign seem all the more grotesque." (New Yorker)

On his blog, author Caleb Crain shares a speech he delivered recently at New York Law School concerning how the digitization of books can harm research. (Steamboats Are Ruining Everything)

Book Riot explains how to care for older books.

"The final blow-up of what was once a remarkable, if minor, talent." This was what a New Yorker reviewer wrote of Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!  Publishers Weekly lists twelve more terrible reviews of classic literature.