Books

Of Dirty Books and Bread

Submitted by Blake on August 25, 2016 - 8:05pm
This piece of advice forms the antidote to the abovementioned instruction for cleaning books: conflicting advice across the centuries. Undecided on the issue I will, however, continue to make sure my hands are clean as I continue through manuscripts with recipes, especially the alchemical ones. You never know what may have left that stain in the margin.
From Of Dirty Books and Bread | The Recipes Project
Topic: 
Books

Committee reviewing books pulled from summer reading list in Chesterfield VA

Submitted by Blake on August 22, 2016 - 11:06am
The decision to pull books from a summer reading list in Chesterfield County after parents complained that they were laden with sexually explicit language and violence has drawn the attention of a state senator and criticism from national free-speech advocacy groups.
From Committee reviewing books pulled from summer reading list in Chesterfield - Richmond Times-Dispatch: Chesterfield County News
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Books

The origins of children’s literature - The British Library

Submitted by Blake on August 18, 2016 - 10:31am
By the end of the 18th century, children’s literature was a flourishing, separate and secure part of the publishing industry in Britain. Perhaps as many as 50 children’s books were being printed each year, mostly in London, but also in regional centres such as Edinburgh, York and Newcastle. By today’s standards, these books can seem pretty dry, and they were often very moralising and pious. But the books were clearly meant to please their readers, whether with entertaining stories and appealing characters, the pleasant tone of the writing, or attractive illustrations and eye-catching page layouts and bindings.
From The origins of children’s literature - The British Library
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Books
Children

To Your Brain, Audiobooks Are Not ‘Cheating’

Submitted by Blake on August 12, 2016 - 4:31pm
This question — whether or not listening to an audiobook is “cheating” — is one University of Virginia psychologist Daniel Willingham gets fairly often, especially ever since he published a book, in 2015, on the science of reading. (That one was about teaching children to read; he’s got another book out next spring about adults and reading.) He is very tired of this question, and so, recently, he wrote a blog post addressing it. (His opening line: “I’ve been asked this question a lot and I hate it.”) If, he argues, you take the question from the perspective of cognitive psychology — that is, the mental processes involved — there is no real difference between listening to a book and reading it. So, according to that understanding of the question: No, audiobooks are not cheating.
From To Your Brain, Audiobooks Are Not ‘Cheating’ -- Science of Us
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Books

Cloud Atlas 'astonishingly different' in US and UK editions, study finds

Submitted by Blake on August 12, 2016 - 9:08am
David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas is a popular choice for book groups around the world. But it turns out that American readers may be enjoying a rather different experience to those in Britain, after an academic uncovered “astonishing” differences between the US and UK editions of the award-winning novel. Professor Martin Paul Eve of Birkbeck, University of London was writing a paper on Cloud Atlas, working from the UK paperback published by Sceptre, and from a Kindle edition of the novel, when he realised he was unable to find phrases in the ebook that he could distinctly remember from the paperback. He compared the US and UK editions of the book, and realised they were “quite different to one another”.
From Cloud Atlas 'astonishingly different' in US and UK editions, study finds | Books | The Guardian
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Books

How American Girl puberty books shaped a generation of tweens.

Submitted by Blake on August 8, 2016 - 8:26pm
Still, the American Girl puberty books have managed to stay relevant for two decades, so I’m hopeful that they will continue to change with the times. And it’s promising to see that the series is taking baby steps toward loosening up its famously conservative brand. After all, for this tween growing up in the late ’90s, these books were a guide through a wilderness of raging hormones and new social pressures. I can only imagine how life-changing they’d have been if they’d taught me how to match my bra strap to my shirt.
From How American Girl puberty books shaped a generation of tweens.
Topic: 
Books

The End of Books - NY Times Books Section - 1992

Submitted by Blake on August 5, 2016 - 2:45pm
Hypertext is truly a new and unique environment. Artists who work there must be read there. And they will probably be judged there as well: criticism, like fiction, is moving off the page and on line, and it is itself susceptible to continuous changes of mind and text. Fluidity, contingency, indeterminacy, plurality, discontinuity are the hypertext buzzwords of the day, and they seem to be fast becoming principles, in the same way that relativity not so long ago displaced the falling apple.
From The End of Books
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Books
Internet

Publishers' Dilemma: Judge A Book By Its Data Or Trust The Editor's Gut?

Submitted by Blake on August 4, 2016 - 9:47am
"Data is better than your gut — yes, I have said that," says Dominique Raccah, publisher and CEO of Sourcebooks, a company that's been described as "data driven" — a description she does not dispute. She says sales data has been available for a while but now she has access to a different kind of information.
From Publishers' Dilemma: Judge A Book By Its Data Or Trust The Editor's Gut? : All Tech Considered : NPR
Topic: 
Books
Libraries

How do authors make money from library books?

Submitted by Blake on July 26, 2016 - 10:21am
But that staple of society is changing. The Los Angeles County Public Library has a lot of physical books, but it’s shifting a lot of its book budget to more of the hybrid model with ebooks and audio."I know I sound like a cheerleader for libraries, and it’s not just because my wife is a librarian. But I really believe that that's one of the staples of our society, is libraries.” So, another question to consider is how authors get compensated for every time people click on a title to check it out from the library and read it on their tablet or phone.
From How do authors make money from library books?
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Authors
Books
Libraries

Book Piracy as Peer Preservation

Submitted by Blake on July 26, 2016 - 9:35am
In describing the people, books, and technologies behind one of the largest “shadow” libraries in the world, we find a tension between the dynamics of sharing and preservation. The paper proceeds to contextualize contemporary book piracy historically, challenging accepted theories of peer production. Through a close analysis of one digital library’s system architecture, software and community, we assert that the activities cultivated by its members are closer to that of conservationists of the public libraries movement, with the goal of preserving rather than mass distributing their collected material. Unlike common peer production models emphasis is placed on the expertise of its members as digital preservations, as well as the absorption of digital repositories. Additionally, we highlight issues that arise from their particular form of distributed architecture and community.
From Book Piracy as Peer Preservation : Computational Culture
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Books

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