Growing up, the library was not just Amanda Oliver’s favorite place but also her “first beloved destination, first embodied center… it was absolutely sacred.” However, soon after Oliver began her career as a librarian at a Title I school and then in the D.C. public library system, she witnessed how systemic racism, income inequality, the […] The post America’s Public Libraries Reflect the Systematic Failures and Social Inequality of Our Country appeared first on Electric Literature. Continue reading at 'Electric Literature'
[ Electric Literature | 2023-01-05 12:00:00 UTC ]
Perhaps it’s not surprising that even the prose in illustrator Forsyth Harmon’s debut novel Justine is deeply imagistic. Reading this short, powerful story feels like wandering through a museum exhibit about teenage girlhood on Long Island in the summer of 1999. Narrator Ali and her friends feed... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-03-02 12:00:00 UTC ]
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When we started sheltering in place at the beginning of the pandemic, in a burst of energy and optimism I haven’t experienced since, I started a social distance book club. I selected Lara Williams’s debut novel Supper Club, which I’d recently read, because I thought a book that centered on women... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-03-02 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Lauren Oyler’s debut novel brings the reader down a rabbit hole of endless, mindless scrolling, online identities, and conspiracy theories. Fake Accounts follows the journey of a young woman after she discovers that her boyfriend is running an Instagram account spouting dangerous conspiracies... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-02-26 12:00:00 UTC ]
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In Daniel Loedel’s haunting debut novel Hades, Argentina, Tomás Orilla returns to Buenos Aires—“a city made for forgetting as much for nostalgia”—ten years after fleeing the military dictatorship whose regime disappeared upwards of 30,000 thousand political opponents, including Isabel Aroztegui,... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-02-25 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Long considered a tool to encourage patrons to return materials on time, in the past few years hundreds of public libraries have decided late fees do more harm than good by keeping away low-income and disadvantaged readers. Continue reading at CBC
[ CBC | 2021-02-21 09:00:00 UTC ]
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It is hard to talk about sex and literature without making some sort of Fifty Shades of Grey reference. But where Fifty Shades shows a caricature of S&M, the new anthology Kink is a celebration of the range of human desires. From the power of control and the titillation of voyeurism, this... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-02-12 12:00:00 UTC ]
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The best way to get over a breakup is to throw yourself into art and experience the catharsis of observing someone else’s pain. For some, this might be listening to Fleetwood Mac’s album Rumours on repeat. For others, perhaps a double feature of Lost in Translation and Her. For readers, the... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-02-12 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Arts Council England (ACE) is awarding £152,000 to help public libraries buy e-books and digital audio products after demand soared during the pandemic. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-01-21 11:35:36 UTC ]
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The free provision of e-books for children by Oak National Academy has been branded a "wake up call" for a sector still awaiting its long-discussed shared website for all public libraries. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-01-21 04:54:52 UTC ]
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David F. Walker and Marcus Kwame Anderson’s graphic novel The Black Panther Party may be the first introduction to the revolutionary party for some. For others, it will provide additional context to the history. The graphic novel spans from the founding of the party by Huey P. Newton and Bobby... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-01-19 12:00:00 UTC ]
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For me, reading Torrey Peters’ debut novel Detransition, Baby is akin to listening to your favorite hometown band headlining their first stadium concert. You end up marveling over how experiences you thought you knew well are rendered in utterly unexpected ways, and realize how patterns from... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-01-15 12:00:00 UTC ]
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BookLife Elite will offer public libraries access to a curated collection of unlimited, simultaneous-use indie e-books, meaning library readers can access the books instantly—no holds lists. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2021-01-13 05:00:00 UTC ]
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“The world will come between you,” writes Marcos Gonsalez in the prologue of his memoir Pedro’s Theory: Reimagining the Promised Land. The you here refers to both the author and his father, an immigrant from Mexico, captured in a photograph from the author’s childhood. “Hundreds of years of... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-01-12 12:00:00 UTC ]
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I first read Nadia Owusu’s debut memoir Aftershocks in June, as the United States—led by the white nationalist backed Republican administration—was several months into a still ongoing unchecked global pandemic which was disproportionately killing Black, Hispanic, and Indigenous Americans.... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-01-11 12:00:00 UTC ]
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You can still borrow books for free even when public libraries are closed, though each personal collection has its own character. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-01-08 17:38:20 UTC ]
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It’s a truism that historical fiction reveals more about its own age it than the one it portrays. We can’t escape or even perceive our own biases, the reasoning goes, so we end up helplessly projecting them onto a past where they don’t belong. But the past is not a museum, and contemporary... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-01-08 12:00:00 UTC ]
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In our series “Can Writing Be Taught?” we partner with Catapult to ask their course instructors all our burning questions about the process of teaching writing. This time we’re talking to Abeer Hoque, author of the memoir Olive Witch, who’s teaching a two-week seminar on one of the most... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-01-08 12:00:00 UTC ]
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If you, like me, could really use some nice library-oriented news right about now, you’re in luck. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the impossibility of going to physical libraries for much of the year, readers borrowed record numbers of ebooks, audiobooks, and digital magazines from public... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2021-01-07 15:34:02 UTC ]
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It’s no secret that the tech world has a troubling track record with diversity in the workplace, especially with the dearth of Black and Latinx employees in key roles. Author Mateo Askaripour confronts the lack of diversity within the workplace with satire in his debut novel Black Buck. Some... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-01-07 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Translating novels, short stories, and poetry into English in a way that remains true to their original form can take years, even decades of dedication. And then there is the job of persuading the Anglophone publishing world to take chances. Translators’ labor is ultimately rewarding for readers... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2020-12-31 12:00:00 UTC ]
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