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Will Homer Save Us?

Have we become a post-literate society? That’s the debate currently agitating historians, journalists, English teachers, and reading researchers. (Or, should I say, the debate that is raging once again, since…
Tall bookshelves in a library that reach up to a mirrored ceiling
From the Founder

Banned Books, Again

Planet Word is located in the DMV — that’s the junction of the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia — so we need to track what’s happening around us in…

Multiple tall stacks of books.
From the Founder

Remote Control

A while ago I was invited to be a judge for the 2022 Aspen Words Literary Prize. My husband, Tom Friedman of the New York Times, had served a 9-year…

A bookshelf in the Library at Planet Word with a selection of books, some of which have been challenged or banned across the country.
From the Founder

Banned Books

If you’ve been following the “word news” lately, you’ll know that the big issue of the last few weeks has been book banning. Wait a minute, you might be excused…

People gathering at a protest.
From the Founder

A Year of Words

Planet Word opened officially on October 22, 2020, in the middle of the pandemic. People asked me why we’d open at such a risky time health-wise and financially, but I…