“It’s horrifying, because banning books is one of the hallmarks of authoritarianism,” she says of the growing restrictions. “They say it's about protecting children,” “I think it is about controlling what narratives are allowed to exist in the public space.”
Books
Publishers Killed the Paperback, Then Blamed Readers
In 1939, the 25-cent paperback made America a nation of readers, delivering thrillers, classics and Pulitzer-winning books. So why did the Big Five publishers just kill the mass market paperback?
When Europe’s monastic libraries were looted, Britain’s richest book collectors went hunting
English booksellers and book collectors used agents on the ground in France, Germany and Italy to buy books from threatened libraries, coerce their owners into sale, or, if everything else failed, simply steal the desired items. They did so secure in the knowledge that the homes of these books would soon be broken up anyhow. The moment popularised the term “bibliomania”, as some of the richest men and women in England competed against each other to pay eye-watering prices for Europe’s oldest and rarest books.
New book spotlights WWII Army chief librarian Ray Trautman, who armed troops with reads
If you think the biggest weapons of World War II were tanks and planes, Ray Trautman would like a word — and he’d probably hand you a book while he was at it. Historian Molly Guptill Manning, author of "A Librarian’s War: The Man Who Fought World War II with Books," joined us to share the story of the Army’s chief librarian during World War II and the way he devoted his life to building literacy, libraries and a love of reading across the United States.
Your Library Needs a Designated Oldest Book
Every library or historical society should have a Designated Oldest Book. Even if, and especially if, you are a small organization. No one should have to take a trip to a major institution or make an appointment to see an old book, not when there are so many on the market waiting to find homes. Everyone should be able to directly experience a work, not locked in a plexiglass case, that is a couple centuries old. Your DOB need not be not be an irreplaceable treasure to scholars and bibliophiles, but it will be to your community.
3 decades after sparking a debate about censorship, ‘Daddy’s Roommate’ returns to Rutland – VTDigger
The Rutland Free Library is launching a Freedom to Read Book Club with a pick that spurred local conflict and national coverage in the 1990s — and holds newfound relevance amid fights over the First Amendment today.
The Day NY Publishing Lost Its Soul
The Day NY Publishing Lost Its Soul How did we get here? And how do we get back?
“Don’t think for one second that we don’t need independent writers. The forces of conformity and centralization of power are stronger now than ever. Books have always been our safeguard in such troubled times. But when books are controlled and constrained by the entrenched system, they fail to provide us with meaningful alternatives.”
Books are inefficient, and the internet is training us to expect optimized experiences.
If You Quit Social Media, Will You Read More Books?
Does that mean that people are less literate in general? Counterintuitively, there has never been a time in history when people have spent more time reading words, even if it’s just text messages on their phones. We can agree that most of this reading is less edifying than books are, but I do wonder if the downturn in book reading, and its relationship to our online habits, might be more complicated than we are inclined to conclude. It is, for instance, much easier to find information now—information we might once have looked for in books, say, and also information about the books we might consider reading. Maybe, in the age of the internet, many of us, as informed readers, only want to read one book, tailored very specifically to our interests, every couple of years.
OpenAI desperate to avoid explaining why it deleted pirated book datasets
OpenAI desperate to avoid explaining why it deleted pirated book datasets
But the authors suspect there’s more to the story than that. They noted that OpenAI appeared to flip-flop by retracting its claim that the datasets’ “non-use” was a reason for deletion, then later claiming that all reasons for deletion, including “non-use,” should be shielded under attorney-client privilege.
Short Little Difficult Books – by Lincoln Michel
Novels that challenge with style, story, or form that you can read in a day.
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