When the U.K. newspaper the Sunday Times outed J.K. Rowling as the author of detective novel The Cuckoo's Calling earlier this year, computer scientists were among the first people called in. Although the novel was published under the pen name Robert Galbraith, two computational scholars––including Duquesne University's Patrick Juola––were tasked with confirming or denying whether the novel belonged to the Harry Potter author, or one of three other possible writers. That Juola succeeded (his conclusions were later confirmed by Rowling herself) speaks volume about the the potential that algorithms and computer science can have, even with application to a field as notoriously subjective as literature. Which raises an interesting question: Can we use software to help us think about literature? Reverse Engineering J.K. Rowling To explore that question, we should first look at how the Juola cracked Rowling's writing style. To begin the process, Juola loaded 1,000–word samples of The Cuckoo's Calling in to his self–designed Java Graphical Authorship Attribution Program (JGAAP), along with several other texts, including The Casual Vacancy, Rowling's first post–Harry Potter novel. A freely available Java–based, modular program for textual analysis, categorization, and authorship attribution, JGAAP analyzed the texts on four different variables: word–length distribution, the use of common words like "the" and "of," recurring–word pairings, and the distribution of "character... Continue reading at 'Fast Company'
[ Fast Company | 2013-09-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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"The Rumor" by Anushka Ravinshankar and "Kids of Kabul" by Deborah Ellis have won the 2013 South Asia Book Awards for Children’s and Young Adult Literature. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-05-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Amanda Knox's memoir is titled 'Waiting to be Heard' and discusses her life from childhood to her time in prison in Italy. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2013-05-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Seagull Books, based in Kolkata, India, is perhaps the world's most prolific translator of German books into English in the world, says Deutsche Well. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-04-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Stockholm Text, a young publishing house translating and publishing Swedish literature in English, share lessons learned from their first year in business. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-03-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Folio Society will sponsor the newly named Folio Prize, a literature award of £40,000 to honor the best English-language fiction published in the UK. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-03-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Folio Society has been announced as sponsor of the Literature Prize, the new award co-founded... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-03-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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For her work translating and publishing a distinguished list of German-language authors in the USA, Knopf executive Carol Brown Janeway has received the 2013 Friedrich Ulfers Prize. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-02-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Emue Books is a new Australian publisher with an unexpected mission: publishing Francophone literature and reviving "fairness" in publishing. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-02-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Suzy Lucas is to be prize administrator for the newly established Literature Prize.... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-02-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Over the past decade, Christopher Castellani—artistic director of Grub Street in Boston, one of the country’s largest literary centers—has written a trio of novels about an Italian immigrant family, the Grassos, a family much like his own. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2013-01-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Indian writer Jeet Thayil has won the third DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, worth $50,000,... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-01-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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As the world is being set up to facilitate frictionless commercial transactions between diverse cultures, is literary fiction losing its role? Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-01-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Trade magazines Publishers Weekly and The Bookseller have put out new lists analyzing the bestselling books of 2012. No surprise, but E.L. James dominated. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-01-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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McGraw-Hill is taking on the one-size-fits-all approach to textbooks with its freshly unveiled SmartBook: an ebook that is claimed to adapt to student's learning patterns. Aimed at college students, the SmartBook service peppers users with questions as they read and determines what topics it... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2013-01-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Literature Prize, the book prize founded by Aitken Alexander m.d. and agent Andrew Kidd, has... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-12-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Literature organisations in the North East have said they face difficult times with a combination... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-11-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Doris Janhsen, publishing director of Germany's Verlag Friedrich Oetinger, predicts that we'll see fewer vampires and zombies in forthcoming YA and teen books. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2012-11-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Looking ahead to Finland's turn as Guest of Honor at the Frankfurt Book Fair, lit organization FILI is offering translation support to international publishers. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2012-10-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Dickens or Denisovich? Mailer or Malamud? This professor agonized over the reading list for a class of prison inmates. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2012-09-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The success of 'Harry Potter, 'Twilight' and other has created a halo effect for the entire genre. And kids aren't the only ones doing it.For years, the book industry has been mired in debates about the plight of independent booksellers, the rise of Amazon and the fate of print as it struggles... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2012-08-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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