Tonight around 6 pm Pacific, I'll be appearing on Huffington Post Live in a segment called Where Did Moby Dick Go? The news that inspired the discussion was Ashley Thorne's article for The Guardian:

Before they arrive on campus this fall, many American college freshmen will already have finished their first assignment. Their colleges have given them a "common reading", one book that they are all expected to read. Last year, 309 colleges made such assignments. It's a great tradition, but something curious has happened since my days as a college student. Only eight schools assigned anything published before 1990, and only four assigned books that could by any stretch be considered classics.

For American college students, 1990 appears to be a historical cliff beyond which it is rumored some books were once written, though no one is quite sure what. Why have US colleges decided that the best way to introduce their students to higher learning is through comic books, lite lit, and memoirs?

I'll probably have some opinions. You can watch the whole thing on Huffington Post Live starting at 6.