The Blackbird of Belfast Lough keeps singing
Jean Hannah Edelstein: Left-leaning Americans should welcome books from Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber

Alison Flood: Is this the end of misery memoirs?
Inspired by a much-translated 9th-century Irish lyric, The Blackbird at Belfast Lough, the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry is putting on an exhibition of specially-commissioned depictions of its emblem, the blackbird

Reworked novel by Peter Matthiesson takes National book award
Alison Flood: After years at the top of bestseller lists, misery memoirs are losing their appeal. Are they about to become just a bad memory?
