Today’s Wall Street Journal  has an interesting Q&A with author Adam Hochschild, who they tagged to make the first selection in their Book Club. His selection: Life on the Mississippi. Mr. Hochschild makes the point that Twain’s writings were sometimes erratic and that readers can (and should) skip many of the chapters of the book. Of course he’s read this book five times, so perhaps he came to that conclusion after read #3. For the rest of us it’s we  simply take the good with the bad. Clearly much of Twain’s writings was meant to fill up pages (for many of his magazine articles he was in fact paid by the word; his novels were usually illustrated also) but I’ll wager this: even his filler content is superior to what passes for literature these days. Read the article here: WSJ

If you’re looking for definitive scholarship on Mark Twain, go to U.C. Berkeley’s Mark Twain Project Online. This organization just published Twain’s autobiography in 3 volumes and continues its great work of putting all of his writings and letters online. Donate to the MTPO!