New Mark Twain book hits store shelves
| 21 April 2009
Video: Bob Hirst on "Who is Mark Twain"
(Videos produced by Roxanne Makasdjian, UC Berkeley Media Relations)
Times may have changed in many ways since the prolific 19th-century author's days steering a riverboat down the Mississippi, and since his literary heyday with a boy named Huck Finn. But the general editor of the Mark Twain Papers & Project at UC Berkeley's Bancroft Library says Clemens is very much still worth reading.
Why? "Because he's a genius," says Bob Hirst, who selected the various pieces in the book published by HarperStudio and available in hardback, audio and e-book formats. (More details are online from Harper Studio and UC Berkeley.
Hirst recently took time to talk about the continuing allure of the iconic American writer who tackled everything from race and religion to jumping frogs and jingoism.