Hitting the Books: Meet Richard Akrwright, the world's first tech titan

You didn't actually believe all those founder's myths about tech billionaires like Bezos, Jobs and Musk pulling themselves up by their bootstraps from some suburban American garage, did you? In reality, our corporate kings have been running the same playbook since the 18th century when Lancashire's own Richard Arkwright wrote it. Arkwright is credited with developing a means of forming cotton fully into thread — technically he didn't actually invent or design the machine, but developed the overarching system in which it could be run at scale — and spinning that success into financial fortune. Never mind the fact that his 24-hour production lines were operated by boys as young as seven pulling 13-hour shifts. In Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech — one of the best books I've read this year — LA Times tech reporter Brian Merchant lays bare the inhumane cost of capitalism wrought by the industrial revolution and celebrates the workers who stood against those first tides of automation: the Luddites. Hachette Book GroupExcerpted from Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech by Brian Merchant. Published by Hachette Book Group. Copyright © 2023 by Brian Merchant. All rights reserved.The first tech titans were not building global information networks or commercial space rockets. They were making yarn and cloth. A lot of yarn, and a lot of cloth. Like our modern-day titans, they started out as entrepreneurs. But until... Continue reading at 'Engadget'

[ Engadget | 2023-09-10 14:30:56 UTC ]
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World Book Night Is Tonight, Free Books for 500,000 People

The United States celebrated World Book Night on April 23, which meant that over 25,000 volunteers throughout the country handed out half a million free books to promote reading. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives

[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-04-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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World Book Day titles to revert to single books

Written By: Caroline Horn Publication Date: Tue, 17/05/2011 - 09:05 Jacqueline Wilson and Roald Dahl are among the high-profile authors selected for the 2012 £1 World Book Day books, which will revert to the single-book format for the first time in four years. The teen WBD titles will also go... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2011-05-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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World Book Day books top charts but sales are down on last year

Written By: Philip Stone Publication Date: Tue, 15/03/2011 - 15:56 Sales of the six £1 World Book Day books fell 36% week-on-week, to 159,000 copies solda figure down 9% on the comparative week last yearbut they nonetheless continue to dominate the sharp end of this weeks Official UK Top... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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£1 World Book Day books storm to the top of the charts

Written By: Philip Stone Publication Date: Tue, 08/03/2011 - 16:01 The latest crop of £1 World Book Day books, led by Cope & Davies' Spy Dog/The Great Pet Shop Panic (Puffin/S&S) take positions one-through-six in this week's Official UK Top 50, with sales totalling 247,235 copiesa... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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World Book Night books defy the critics as sales grow

Written By: Philip Stone and Felicity Wood Publication Date: Fri, 04/03/2011 - 09:43 The majority of the books to be handed out tomorrow (5th March) as part of World Book Night have already received a sales boost in 2011. The figures will be a welcome fillip for the organisers, with founder... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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HarperCollins to allow tech firms to use its books to train AI models

Some nonfiction backlist titles will be used to train artificial intelligence with authors’ permissionPublisher HarperCollins will allow some of its titles to be used to train AI models, with the permission of authors.The company “has reached an agreement with an artificial intelligence... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2024-11-19 16:24:59 UTC ]
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Shanghai’s Book Fair: Bright Stands, Busy Meetings

The 11th edition of the China Shanghai International Children's Book Fair has opened its busy weekend run. The post Shanghai’s Book Fair: Bright Stands, Busy Meetings appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives

[ Publishing Perspectives | 2024-11-15 18:47:39 UTC ]
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Meet the 2024 National Book Award Finalists

The winners of the 75th National Book Awards—given every year in Young People’s Literature, Translation, Poetry, Nonfiction, and Fiction—will be announced next week in a ceremony hosted by Kate McKinnon at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City. Ahead of the festivities, Literary Hub caught up... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2024-11-13 09:57:44 UTC ]
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Heartland Fall Forum: Changing the World, One Book at a Time

After a day of celebration, the 250 booksellers attending Heartland Fall Forum focused on the business of bookselling, with a busy trade show followed by a day of education as veteran booksellers mixed with 114 first-time attendees. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-10-10 04:00:00 UTC ]
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The Black List Upended the Film Industry. The Book World Is Next

“I was loath to jump into it,” Black List founder Franklin Leonard says of expanding into publishing. “It’s not a great look to be like, ‘I'm from Hollywood and I'm here to save you.’” Continue reading at Wired

[ Wired | 2024-10-04 15:00:00 UTC ]
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Frankfurt Book Fair 2024: Where the World Comes Together

The 2024 Frankfurt Book Fair will feature one of the most expansive and diverse programs yet. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-09-27 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Children’s Authors on the Real-World Cost of Book Banning

Authors discuss how having their work targeted by censors has directly affected their livelihood and their well-being. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-09-16 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Little Free Library has a new map to help places hit hardest by book bans.

Little Free Library has debuted a new interactive map on its website that charts the locations of Little Free Libraries across the United States, alongside the number of book bans that are in place in each state. The organization built the tool as a way to quickly find the nearest free library —... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2024-09-05 18:27:15 UTC ]
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New YA Books Hitting Shelves, August 26, 2024

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[ Book Riot | 2024-08-26 15:00:00 UTC ]
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The Book World Takes on the 2024 Democratic National Convention

Chicago booksellers and other literary-minded organizations are responding to the crowds in town for the Democratic National Convention by selling books, promoting causes, and, in the case of one publication, reporting on the proceedings from a literary perspective. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-08-22 04:00:00 UTC ]
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The 10 Most Interesting Questions in the World of Books and Reading

Some stories come and go, but there are some stories that are part of fundamental questions that the book world is asking and trying to answer. Here are the ten that I find to be the most important at the moment. Continue reading at Book Riot

[ Book Riot | 2024-08-21 10:00:00 UTC ]
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The International Indie Publishing Houses Shaking Up the Book World

Contemporary literature is one of those four-dimensional things that seem to expand whenever you take a closer look. No one really knows more than a corner of it, perhaps a very large one, but a corner nevertheless. This quality, this mercuriality, of literature makes it more endless than any... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2024-08-16 11:05:00 UTC ]
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