Roundup in Bookish World

Some truly amazing links today in the world of literary pop culture.

First, Twilight-mania continues:

• Jezebel uses Twilight to look at the teenage trend-follower vs. stalwart trend-ignorer phenomenon:

  "For every group of girls screaming at a mall appearance, there's an equally fierce group of deliberate trend-buckers, defining themselves by their scorn for what's popular."

'Tis true. There's not much room for nuance in the early teen years. Of course, some of us didn't fall on either side of the dividing line, but quietly lusted after teen idols (I think Leo DiCaprio was the Rob Pattinson of my era) while remaining somewhat buttoned up about it. In other words, no posters, no screaming, no obsessive re-watching. Just dreaming and heart-fluttering.

• EW covers the "Twilight" premiere madness quite well. Read the insane comments for a laugh.

• Speaking of books beloved by teenage girls (but somewhat ignored because of the fangirls' skin color) USA Today interviews Sister Souljah, author of The Coldest Winter ever about her new bestselling prequel, Midnight. Souljah refuses to call herself an "urban lit" writer. She says
  

  "Shakespeare wrote about love. I write about love. Shakespeare wrote about gang warfare, family feuds and revenge. I write about all the same things."

  Still, whether it's categorizable or not, Coldest (with some help from Zane) kicked off a hugely popular genre. Urban lit is an undebiable phenomenon that owes a lot to Souljah. My students loved this book, and I definitely want to read it myself. Check out the sidebar for her wicked response to the phrase, "Sister Souljah moment."

• Jeffrey Goldberg puts George Eliot at the top of a silly but funny list of Philo-semites--a topic near and dear to my blog-heart. I nominate fictional characters Sir Wilfred Ivanhoe and Annemarie, from Number the Stars, in the category of "imaginary philo-semites."