"It's important for one reason to make them more confident and also to enhance their vocabulary and their language, because as an adult you can read books that are a little more difficult or challenging and they become familiar with the text and that sort of literature, " he said.

BBC: Stars to encourage boys to read

Smith mimicked the endless, generation-counting longueurs of the Old Testament so skillfully that he rendered the book dead as literature while giving it credibility as a sacred text: a book as boring as this could have been inspired only by the breath of God.

NEWYORKER: I, Nephi

Rather than discussing the already worn (and to me irrelevant) debate of digital book versus analog book, I talked about future technologies like brain computer interface, real-time simulation and programmable material, and how these will change the face of literature far beyond the Kindle, perhaps eventually eliminating text altogether.

FORBES: The 21st Century Novel: Jaded Ibis Sees a 'Mashup'

Some critics decry the quality of the standards, including their focus on adding more nonfiction or "informational" text to classrooms, which they argue crowds out literature.

WSJ: New School Standards Spur a Backlash