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Over the course of its short life, Twitter has been many things to many people… from not-so-personal diary to celebrity sounding board; from advertising platform to political tool for the collective masses. And now, Twitter can add one more title to its list of uses: Literary device for Pulitzer Prize winners. Beginning last Thursday night, the New Yorker began publishing Jennifer Egan’s new short story “Black Box,” one tweet at a time.

Twenty five years ago, the novel “The Bonfire of the Vanities” was published. Written by Tom Wolfe, the book tells the story of a greedy, white Wall Street trader who accidentally kills a black teenager in the South Bronx, then deliberately flees the scene of the accident. Highlighting issues of class privilege, racism, greed, and politics, the book was a commercial and critical success, and came to define an era in New York City and in America. Journalist and personal finance expert Alvin Hall joins to answer the question: How much has New York changed in 25 years?

Pico Iyer examines the closeness he has always felt to the English writer Graham Greene.  In The Man Within My Head, he follows Greene’s trail from his first novel, The Man Within, to his later classics like The Quiet American looking at all he has in common with Greene: an English public school education, a lifelong restlessness and refusal to make a home anywhere, a fascination with the complications of faith.

Robert Kanigel tells the story of Great Blasket, an island off the west coast of Ireland renowned during the early 20th century for the rich communal life of its residents and the unadulterated Irish they spoke. With the Irish language vanishing all through the rest of Ireland, the Great Blasket became a magnet for scholars and writers drawn there during the Gaelic renaissance. On an Irish Island is a love letter to a vanished way of life.

Susan Wissler, Executive Director of The Mount, and writer Roxana Robinson talk about the 150th anniversary of Edith Wharton’s birth. They’ll look at the life, writings, and legacy of Wharton, one of America’s most celebrated writers. The Mount, the Lenox estate Wharton designed and where she wrote Ethan Frome and The House of Mirth, will be celebrating her birthday throughout 2012. The New York Society Library’s exhibition Edith Wharton's "New York City: A Backward Glance" is also on view.

In poet Kevin Young's new book, "The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness," Young offers a remarkable, encyclopedic essay on the history of African-American culture. Young explores how African-American culture and American culture have affected one another. The book, part prose and part essay, also explores how African-American culture has become an essential and inextricable part of American culture.

Ruben Santiago-Hudson discusses directing and acting in the first ever radio play/production of Zora Neale Hurston’s "Their Eyes Were Watching God,” which commemorates the 75th anniversary of the original publication. It is being performed on February 29 and March 1, at 7 pm, in WNYC’s Greene Space and will be broadcast nationally in September.

Pico Iyer examines the closeness he has always felt to the English writer Graham Greene.  In The Man Within My Head, he follows Greene’s trail from his first novel, The Man Within, to his later classics like The Quiet American looking at all he has in common with Greene: an English public school education, a lifelong restlessness and refusal to make a home anywhere, a fascination with the complications of faith.

In 1961, Ezra Jack Keats wrote and illustrated his first children’s book. It was called "The Snowy Day" and it told the story of Peter, a young, African-American boy in Brooklyn, enjoying the season's first snowfall. The book was immediately popular. Prior to its publication, no other mainstream children’s book had featured a black hero in a non-caricatured way.

Rita Dove, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and former U .S. Poet Laureate, discusses The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry . Featuring poems both classic and contemporary, this collection reflects both a dynamic and cohesive portrait of modern American poetry and outlines its trajectory over the past century.

The titans are clashing in the world of poetry. Over Thanksgiving, literary critic Helen Vendler published a savage review of a new anthology, "The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry." The book was edited by Rita Dove, a former Poet Laureate. Dove responded to Vendler's scathing review with an equally vitriolic reply. Vendler is white, and Dove is black, which is either tangential to, or central to, the issue — depending on whom you talk to. The incident has many in the poetry world talking about issues of race, aesthetics, and who belongs in the poetry books, and who does not. 

Biographer Jean Strouse talks about the life of Alice James, sister of famed writers William and Henry, and the only daughter in a family of brilliant and eccentric men. Alice James is a singular portrait embedded in a family history that dazzled her age and still interests ours.

Erica Heller tells about growing up with her iconic father, Joseph Heller, and the rest of her family, which could be by turns caring, infuriating, and exasperating, and anything but dull. Her memoir, Yossarian Slept Here: When Joseph Heller Was Dad, the Apthorp Was Home, and Life Was a Catch-22, details the Hellers’ charmed but turbulent lives.

Born in St. Kitts and brought up in the UK, Caryl Phillips has written about and explored the experience of migration for more than 30 years through his novels, plays, and essays. In Color Me English: Thought About Migrations and Belonging Before and After 9/11 he reflects on the shifting notions of race, culture, and belonging before and after the September 11 attacks.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…" The words are timeless, they could apply to the world today. But of course, they were written over 150 years ago by Charles Dickens, in his masterpiece "A Tale of Two Cities." If he were still alive, Charles Dickens would be turning 200 in just a few months.

After retiring from teaching literature, Patricia Meyer Spacks, a National Book Award finalist, reread dozens of novels and reports the results of her experiment in On Rereading.

Is there a book you like to read again and again?  

Maria Tatar, chair of the Program in Folklore and Mythology at Harvard University, discusses editing The Annotated Peter Pan. She talks about what makes the story the perfect escape fantasy, which appeals to children and adults. This volume includes period photographs, full-color images by iconic illustrators, commentary on stage and screen versions, and J. M. Barrie's screenplay for a silent film.

Powerfully linked to our past and our present at an intersection between history and fantasy, witches tap into age-old legends about the power of women, but also reflect the borderline between science and spirituality that was once much more permeable.

Nathaniel Philbrick tells us why Moby-Dick is one of the greatest American novels. In his National Book Award-winning book, In the Heart of the Sea, Philbrick tells the story of the wreck of the whaleship Essex, the real-life incident that inspired Melville to write Moby-Dick. In Why Read Moby-Dick? He looks at the fiction itself, highlighting its humor and characters.

Writer and comedian Andy Borowitz talks about choosing the 50 Funniest American Writers and looks at the craft of humor writing. In The 50 Funniest American Writers: An Anthology of Humor from Mark Twain to The Onion, he brought together contemporary masters such as David Sedaris, Roy Blount Jr., Ian Frazier, Bernie Mac, Wanda Sykes, and George Saunders, and reached back to Mark Twain, Thurber, and Lenny Bruce.