epidemicEgyptnatural to inquire: what's the predominant religion?" She later backtracked from that statement. Oates was also criticized for responding to a Mississippi school's pulling of To Kill a Mockingbird from its eighth grade curriculum with a tweet claiming that Mississippians do not read. Oates defended her statements on Twitter saying, "I don't consider that I really said anything that I don't feel and I think that sometimes the crowd is not necessarily correct. You know, Kierkegaard said, 'The crowd is a lie.' The sort of lynch mob mentality among some people on Twitter and they rush after somebodythey rush in this direction; they rush over here; they're kind of rushing around the landscape of the news". Productivity Oates writes in longhand, working from "8 till 1 every day, then again for two or three hours in the evening." Her prolificacy has become one of her best-known attributes, although often discussed disparagingly. The New York Times wrote in 1989 that Oates's "name is synonymous with productivity", and in 2004, The Guardian noted that "Nearly every review of an Oates book, it seems, begins with a list [of her publication totals]". In a journal entry written in the 1970s, Oates sarcastically addressed her critics, writing, "So many books! so many! Obviously JCO has a full career behind her, if one chooses to look at it that way; many more titles and she might as well... what?... give up all hopes for a 'reputation'? […] but I work hard, and long, and as the hours roll by I seem to create more than I anticipate; more, certainly, than the literary world allows for a 'serious' writer. Yet I have more stories to tell, and more novels […] ". In The New York Review of Books in 2007, Michael Dirda suggested that disparaging criticism of Oates "derives from reviewer's angst: How does one judge a new book by Oates when one is not familiar with most of the backlist? Where does one start?" Several publications have published lists of what they deem the best Joyce Carol Oates books, designed to help introduce readers to the author's daunting body of work. In a 2003 article entitled "Joyce Carol Oates for dummies", The Rocky Mountain News recommended starting with her early short stories and the novels A Garden of Earthly Delights (1967), them (1969), Wonderland (1971), Black Water (1992), and Blonde (2000). In 2006, The Times