On the Books: Writers remember Doris Lessing, Barbara Park

This weekend saw the passings of several literary greats. Read on for more of today’s top books headlines:

Doris Lessing, Nobel Prize winner and author of more than 50 books, died Sunday morning at age 94. Margaret Atwood penned a touching tribute for The Guardian here. [EW]

Children’s book author Barbara Park, best known for her Junie B. Jones books, died Friday at 66. [EW]

Finally, writer, critic, Southern literature king Louis D. Rubin died Saturday at age 89. His Algonquin Books co-founder Shannon Ravenel remembered his legacy for the News & Observer. [AP]

Politics & Prose bookstore in Washington, D.C., joined the Harvard University Bookstore as the second to participate in the project “Recovering The Classics,” which allows customers to print their own versions of books in the public domain and use crowdsourced cover art. [Politics and Prose]

Buzzfeed‘s Isaac Fitzgerald declared he won’t publish negative reviews, but The New Yorker‘s Maria Bustillos argues that negativity is necessary in literary criticism. [The New Yorker]

Also from The New Yorker: Comedian/actor/writer B.J. Novak imagines the hilarious musings of the man who invented the calendar. [The New Yorker]

The new book central: Miami. Seriously. The Miami Book Fair International, now celebrating its 30th year, is “the largest and by nearly all accounts the most diverse public literary event in the United States,” writes Lizette Alvarez. [The New York Times]