It's partly because of bookshelves like these — and their digital equivalents — that publishers have had a positive open to 2014. Blackred/iStockphoto hide caption
Karen Russell's novel Swamplandia! was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2012. Michael Lionstar hide caption
W.H. Auden at the 92nd Street Y Poetry Center in 1966. Diane Dorr-Dorynek/Courtesy of the 92nd Street Y hide caption
Dylan Thomas, seen here in 1944, died less than a decade later while on tour in New York City. Hulton Archive/Getty Images hide caption
James Ellroy's novels include The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere and, most recently, Perfidia. He lives in Los Angeles, the setting for much of his work. Christopher Polk/Getty Images for AFI hide caption
Former Reading Rainbow host LeVar Burton reads from the 2011 best-seller Go the [bleep] to Sleep. YouTube hide caption