For the last few years, I’ve been making literary new year’s resolutions — and following up the following year to see how well I kept my promises. Last year I limited myself to three:

1. Read the same poem every day for a month. This one was inspired by my dear friend Elliott Holt, an impressively voracious reader whose first novel will be coming out this year. I managed to do it for a few months last year, and read some great poems by Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Bishop, and Adrienne Rich. Now I’m trying again. My first poem for 2013 is Milosz’s “A Song for the End of the World,” suggested by Lauren Groff, who will also be reading it every day in January. Lauren, if you’re reading this, I’d love to talk about the poem with you!

2. Read a best-seller every year. This one was inspired by my Bookforum article about the history of American bestsellers, and what they tell us about the state of our world. The bestseller of the year, obviously, was Fifty Shades of Gray, but I didn’t quite have the heart for it. I reviewed The Casual Vacancy, but perhaps that doesn’t count. Last week I finally got to Where’d You Go, Bernadette, which I enjoyed for its smart satire but didn’t love quite as much as everyone else did. Still, it gave me some pleasant hours on a plane, which is exactly what a bestseller is supposed to do.

3. Read more of my kids’ books. It’s no use for my children to have a mother who’s a book critic if I never discuss their reading with them. This year, at long last, I read the whole Harry Potter series, and loved it as much as they do. I look forward to seeing what they’ll introduce me to next year.

Since I’ve been fixated fairly single-mindedly on my own book these days, I only have one resolution for 2013: read a biography every month, in the hope of learning something about the craft. I’m starting with Phyllis Rose’s Parallel Lives, a book that has been recommended to me by more people than I can count. Here are a few others on my list:

• Alice James: A Biography by Jean Strouse
• All We Know: Three Lives by Lisa Cohen
• Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman
• Vera (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov) by Stacy Schiff
• Cheever: A Life by Blake Bailey
• Eden’s Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father by John Matteson
• Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits by Linda Gordon
• Marcel Proust: A Life by William C. Carter

I could use a few more suggestions. Obviously, my list leans heavily toward literary biography and women writers — how should I expand my horizons? What were your favorite biographies of the past few years? What are the must-read classics? Please leave suggestions in the comments or tweet them to me, and I’ll put them in a follow-up post.

I pine, a little, for the days when the Fire-and-Ice-wearing woman was expected to have a bottle of bitters in her liquor cabinet. But … what’s that line about the psychiatrist? Does it refer to the desire to be analyzed? Or were psychiatrists then considered a little more dashing than they are now?

For years, I put off reading the Harry Potter books. I was saving them to savor as a  special, not-too-challenging treat during some future disaster, like a prolonged hospitalization or period of bedrest. (Naturally, when such a time arrived, I spent it watching “The Wire.”) Finally, a couple of years ago, I read Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone to my son and daughter, then 7 and 5. My son took his time getting into the series, but within a year he had read the rest of the books on his own. My daughter, now 7, just finished the last one.

As my kids fell deeper and deeper under the spell, I was surprised to hear murmurings of disapproval from other parents, who advised me that they wouldn’t allow their own children to read past Book Four, because things got “too dark.” By then it was too late, but I thought I should find out what damage I had done.  So, earlier this year, I read them all.

I wasn’t surprised that I enjoyed the books. But I was surprised that I loved them. Not for the language, which is unartful and sometimes clunky; and as an editor, there are parts I would have loved to cut or condense. (Rowling has announced that she may revise two of the novels — I hope she means Book Five and Book Seven.) I was taken in by the huge glorious sweep of Rowling’s imagination, but also by the emotional depth she brings to the books. As I wrote in TNR:

Much of the pleasure of that series is in watching Rowling flesh out every aspect of the wizarding world in elaborate detail: Hogwarts, complete with all its history, traditions, and curriculum; the fortress-like Ministry of Magic; even St. Mungo’s Hospital, with departments devoted to everything from dragon bites to curses gone wrong.

What makes all this work so well is that the magical world exists in perfect parallel to our known reality, expanding upon it and illuminating it. Harry is a wizard, but he’s also a kid who goes through the same coming-of-age process as every other child, learning to make sense of the world and to figure out his own place in it. If Harry has a little piece of Voldemort inside him, so do we all—a tendency toward evil that we must learn to overcome. …

… More than the chronicle of a wizard’s education or a heroic quest-epic, the Harry Potter series is the story of Harry’s growing up—his transformation from an orphaned and lonely child to an individual who understands his own capabilities and deficiencies and has made peace with his losses.

This, I believe, is why kids respond so strongly to the Harry Potter series — it’s easy for them to identify with Harry, because on some level, despite his extraordinary circumstances, he’s Everykid. But reading it as an adult, and as a mother, I was also struck by Rowling’s profoundly moving representations of maternal figures: the saintly Lily, who sacrifices her life to protect her child and gives him an incomparable gift; and the more down-to-earth Molly Weasley, who becomes a kind of adoptive mother to Harry. So many of the emotional climaxes in the series have to do with these two women: Harry’s visions, in the first book, when he looks into the Mirror of Erised; Molly’s anguish in Book Five when the boggart shows her images of all the people she loves, dead; the lovely moment at the end of Book Seven when the meaning of the doe Patronus is revealed.

Rowling shows her readers that a mother’s love is beautiful and powerful. (And of course it’s impossible to forget that she herself was a single mother when she began writing the books.) Maybe, on an unconscious level, that’s another reason why children love these books so much: however dark and scary things might get, some of that protection rubs off.

While looking up a piece Stanley Edgar Hyman wrote for the magazine Tomorrow in 1947, I stumbled upon this article. With a title like that — which I may well co-opt for my next talk — how could I not read on? Here’s what I discovered:

Today, the literary business is enormously more successful than it was fifteen and twenty years ago, indeed, more than it has ever been before in this country. More than twenty times as many books are being sold, magazines have multiplied manifold and their circulations reach astronomical figures. Whereas before only the most serious newspapers in a city had book columns, now nearly every newspaper, including the tabloids, have book columns. And in addition to these critical columns there are columns of literary chitchat. Then there are all sorts of author-critic programs on the radio, and almost any author can get lecture engagements. Indeed, the book and magazine business has become so profitable that even department stores now have elaborate book sections.

You may be wondering where the “melancholy” part comes in. I had to read quite a bit further. As I understand it, the author’s concern was that literary magazines are sullying themselves by inviting newspaper journalists to write for them. Indeed, “now newspapermen are among the most prized of book writers”! Such is  ”the degradation that has fallen upon the literary life in America today.”

That was Charles Angoff in Tomorrow magazine, April 1947. Excuse me while I hunt for a time machine to whisk me back to those degraded days.

Brighton is a small suburb of Rochester, just over the city line to the southeast. It reminds me of some of the close-in suburbs in Baltimore, where I grew up: wide streets, large stately houses, and a population obviously in transition. In the hour or so I spent driving around the area, I counted at least three syngagogues — all obviously dating from the 1950s or later. At Brighton High School, where I went to look for a librarian who hadn’t been returning my calls, I met a pair of veiled Muslim women in the parking lot wondering where to register their children. Alas, I did not find the librarian — I had wanted to look at the yearbook for 1934, when Jackson graduated — but outside the library was a small exhibit of famous Brighton alumni that included her yearbook picture.

In Jackson’s day, the neighborhood was echt WASP, rather like the Jacksons themselves. Most of the homes on Monteroy Street look like they date from the same period — large stucco houses with dark wood trim, like hers, or Tudors with dark brick. (I don’t yet know whether the paint colors we see today are typical of the thirties.) Around noon, when I arrived, the street was deserted except for a father lugging a pair of toddlers in a wagon.

I hate to single Bookforum out: it’s one of the most thoughtful book review journals in America. It makes an effort to cover books that are often ignored by the Times and other more mainstream press, which results in a more diverse and (not incidentally) more interesting mix. I’m proud to be a contributor.

But after the dispiriting news of the spring—another depressing VIDA count, the lack of women represented in the NMA nominations—I decided that, as a member of the literary community, I had to take action. I initially considered refusing to write for magazines that don’t have sufficient female representation on their editorial staff, meaning at least one woman among the top editorial positions (editor-in-chief, executive editor, senior editor, managing editor). But I realized quickly that this would be self-defeating.

So I’ve decided to continue as I am, but to make the publications I write for aware that I believe the lack of female voices on their staff detracts from the overall quality of their publications. I will register a similar complaint with publications that display a sharp imbalance in male/female bylines (that is to say, according to the VIDA count, virtually all of them). Fellow writers, I encourage you to do the same. Feel free to borrow the text of my letter below or to alter it as you see fit.

One final word: I’m aware that the lack of racial diversity in these publications is even starker, as Roxane Gay and others have recently pointed out. For practical reasons, I’ve chosen to focus on women’s issues, but I realize that lack of diversity in this arena is not limited to gender.

* * *

Dear Michael, Albert, Chris, and David:

I am pleased to have accepted a new assignment for Bookforum. Though I have decided to continue to contribute, I wanted to tell you that I have lately had second thoughts about writing for the magazine because of the lack of female editors on your masthead.

Over the past year or so, the question of women’s representation in book reviewing has been raised multiple times: by the annual VIDA count showing the breakdown in male and female bylines, in terms of both reviewers and books reviewed; by Meg Wolitzer’s article in the New York Times Book Review; and most recently by the National Magazine Awards, where not a single woman was nominated for an award in the prestigious long-form categories. I’ve written about these issues multiple times. But I wonder what concrete steps can be taken to improve the situation for women writers.

I have considered opting out of writing for magazines at which women are not represented among the top editors, such as Bookforum. But such a policy would naturally be counter to my stated intent. So I’ve resolved to continue writing, but at the same time to openly register my discomfort with the current state of affairs.

I don’t believe Bookforum is a sexist publication. I’m glad to see a moderate number female bylines in the magazine—about one-third of the latest issue, which in the current climate is not at all bad. A smaller proportion of books by women are reviewed. I do notice a number of women’s names on the business and production side, as well as among your interns.

I’m glad to have the opportunity to write for you, and I’ve had nothing but pleasant and respectful treatment from every editor with whom I’ve worked. Still, I feel it is my obligation to call attention to the gender imbalance that continues to be problematic in our industry, significantly narrowing the scope of conversation and impoverishing the literary dialogue.

All best,

Ruth Franklin

* * *

It’s been said—usually by writers taking a swipe at critics—that nobody dreams of growing up to be a book reviewer. Maybe I shouldn’t admit this, but I did. There’s a part of me that still can’t believe that I make a living doing what I love to do most: reading and thinking about books. I know my children think it’s a little ridiculous that I get to stay home and read all day while other people have to go to work. Not a day goes by that I don’t feel lucky to be engaged in work that I not only enjoy but also believe in—work that takes over my mind and my life just as the books I constantly accumulate take over my apartment, but work that nonetheless always feels like a privilege and an honor.

It might sound odd or grandiose to speak of book reviewing in these terms. One reason I’m grateful that an award like this one even exists is that we are living in a time in which criticism is suffering from a demotion in prestige. Newspapers across the country have closed their book review sections for lack of advertising. No one can mention Lionel Trilling anymore without reminding us in incredulous tones that his books were best-sellers—something few critics would dare to hope for today. Yet more books are being published than ever before, and people still seem to be eager to buy them, as long as they’re by Stieg Larsson.

But in all seriousness, it’s puzzling that the increase in books published has been met not with an increase in book reviewers, but rather with a decrease. I hate to blame the victims, but it does seem to me that we critics bear some responsibility. Because we haven’t gone down fighting. To a certain extent, I fear we’ve acquiesced in our own decline. Nearly a hundred years ago, Rebecca West, in a piece for The New Republic called “The Duty of Harsh Criticism,” castigated her fellow reviewers for reducing their work to what she called “a chorus of weak cheers.” She complained about a general sense that it was silly to waste one’s fierceness on unserious matters: especially in a time of war, as when West was writing, art and literature can seem less important than politics. This perception persists in our own time of war: just look at the magazine editors who pay several dollars a word for feature stories, and a fraction of that for criticism—the most poorly paid beat in journalism.

Even if we agree with West that the life of the mind does matter, it can be tempting to fall prey to what she called the “vice of amiability”—to reserve our energy for supporting writers we admire rather than criticizing those we dislike. I can’t tell you the number of times I have heard some famous writer or other declare that he or she only writes positive reviews, because negative reviews are so, well, negative. Some of us do this for reasons of self-preservation: we might run into our subjects at cocktail parties. But more often, I think it’s because of a misguided philosophy of criticism based on the idea that reviewing books is somehow secondary, even shameful—something no one grows up dreaming of doing. You see this assumption everywhere, even in the New York Times Book Review, where not long ago a legendary critic, reviewing a book of essays by another critic, cautioned his colleagues to “always understand that in this symbiosis”—meaning between writer and critic—“you are the parasite.”

It’s a pithy formulation. But it obscures the fact that some parasites are essential. We’re not fleas feeding off the blood of our hosts. Book critics and novelists are separate species who nonetheless need each other for their own mutual benefit. It’s obvious why the reviewer needs the novelist—not just any novelist, but a good novelist, even a great one, to challenge us to rise to his or her level. But the novelist also needs the reviewer: not just as a vehicle for advertisement, but as an enforcer of standards. If we speak only to praise—and my children can vouch that I’ve never been guilty of that—then praise itself becomes cheapened, and ultimately meaningless. Not all books are worth reading; some are dull, some are poorly written, and others can actually have a pernicious effect on our culture. It’s the task of the critic to champion books that deserve to be championed, and to take a stand against those that have the power to harm. And anyone who doesn’t believe that books have the power to harm is not taking them seriously enough.

Roger Shattuck once wrote that a work of art is like “a fallen comet, come down blazing and wonderful.” He strived to write about art in a way that would give insight not only into the work—which he called that “fallen, cold, heavy stone, awesome but dead”—but also into the human mind. The point, for him, wasn’t to boil everything down to categories and analysis, but to approach the work holistically, as a live thing. One of Shattuck’s great essays—more a short story than an essay—dramatizes a debate about how to talk about literature between a professor and a former student. The student argues passionately, and convincingly, against the academic model of criticism. Instead, he tells his professor—they’re talking about Marquez, but it could be any great writer—“Show us what he does and how. You’re good at that.”

Show us what he does and how. That’s the essence of criticism. He made it sound so simple, and maybe for him it was. He was good at that. I’m honored to be following in Roger Shattuck’s footsteps, and I’m so grateful to his family for supporting his legacy with this award.