Two Literature Nobels will be handed out this week, 2018 and 2019, because of a something-something I missed last year. But given what I know of the state of the literary world’s flaming dumpster full of shit, I imagine it was a warranted interruption. Michael has the rundown at the Literary Saloon.
Sorry, that is for my other, private blog. This one is about used books and how to win at shopping for them.
My favorite used bookstores don’t pad their shelves with outdated computer manuals collected from garage sale free bins. Each one offers a considered selection of literature that has outlived passing trends. They’re also a good place to start when I get anxiety over the impossibility of making a dent in the world’s literary offerings. Many secondhand-seekers lean on Thoreau’s advice to “read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.” A used book’s very endurance is a reassuring vote of confidence that’s harder to find in a new bookstore, where untested titles offer little to go on besides literary world hype and a polished publisher’s blurb.
Hundreds of thousands of people (are young people people?) are reading their novels on Instagram thanks to the sexy, sexy librarians of the NYPL, proving basically I am old and out of touch with the world. You know what classic works of literature need more of? Animations.
Designed by the design agency Mother New York, Insta Novels is the winner of Fast Company‘s 2019 Innovation by Design Awards in the Apps & Games category. Since launching in August 2018, more than 300,000 people have read the NYPL’s Insta Novels, and the NYPL’s Instagram account has gained 130,000 followers. While gaining more followers was definitely part of the project’s aim, the NYPL is more excited—and surprised—that people actually read the books that it published on Instagram.
Turns out books are part of the system that supports the patriarchy. You mean to tell me that we artistes are not better than regular folk…? Huh.
Researchers trawled through an enormous quantity of books in an effort to find out whether there is a difference between the types of words that describe men and women in literature. Using a new computer model, the researchers analyzed a dataset of 3.5 million books, all published in English between 1900 to 2008. The books include a mix of fiction and non-fiction literature.
Just in time for the extended Halloween season comes “5 Hours of Edgar Allan Poe Stories Read by Vincent Price & Basil Rathbone.”
Atwood, Rushdie, and the other shortlistees reveal their secrets. It’s simple, just do what they did, but slightly differently so you don’t get sued. You’re welcome. (Also, you can participate in the Not-the-Booker voting here.)
Dictators hate a lot of things, typically, but most reliable among those things are books. Bizarrely, what limits them most in the age of computers is what makes them hardest to control.
There is an intimacy to reading, a place created in which we can imagine the experiences of others and experiment with new ideas, all within the safety and privacy of our imaginations. Research has proved that reading a printed book, rather than on a screen, generates more engagement, especially among young people. Books make us empathetic, skeptical, even seditious. It’s only logical then that totalitarian regimes have made their destruction such a visible priority. George Orwell knew this well: the great crime that tempts Winston in “1984” is the reading of a banned book.
What happens to cult classic books that age out of their cool? My suspicion is that they move from the primary focus of lit courses taught by bespectacled hipster profs to the negative examples in lit courses taught by slightly greyer bespectacled hipster profs.
What’s certain is that the cult classic inspires passionate devotion among its fans, who frequently weave their own myths around the texts. But another, underexamined, feature of the cult book is this: in contrast to the examples above, it can sometimes age really badly. Every bit as badly as giant shoulder pads, velour tracksuits and platform hiking boots.
*(Of course, this headline will only work if we assume that at one point in the past I was cool.)
Chicago opts for a no-late fees library system that looks like it might work. Sadly there are no photos of sexy sexy librarians with this article, so if you’re a fetishist like me you can skip this one because I already told you most of what you need to know in the link text.
Bookninja 