Essay Photo by Miko Guziuk / Unsplash In his newest book, What Is American Literature? (Oxford University Press, 2022), award-winning cultural commentator, translator, and editor Ilan Stavans, the publisher of Restless Books and the Lewis-Sebring Professor of Humanities and Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College, rereads an assortment of American literary classics through the prism of the Trump years, from the poems of Phillis Wheatley to Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are. In the primer, written during the presidential election won by Joe Biden—and before the January 6, 2021, sedition instigated by Donald Trump—he also reflects on the role public libraries play in disseminating the nation’s literature, the art of teaching it to new generations of students, and the future of the book as an artifact disseminating knowledge in our graphic-driven age. The volume closes with an epistolary account, in Stavans’s words, of “the Second American Civil War.” What follows is the section on teaching. American literature starts and ends in the classroom. It starts there because whoever is a writer-to-be is likely to discover the magic of literature as an assignment, or else in response to the tedium that comes from feeling disengaged with the educational purpose. And it ends in the classroom because, at a time of precipitous declines in reading habits, books have their largest audiences among students enrolled in... Continue reading at 'World Literature Today'
[ World Literature Today | 2022-02-02 19:59:22 UTC ]
Thanks to Sherman Alexie's forgetfulness, writers across the U.S. will volunteer at their local bookstore Saturday for the inaugural Indies First day.Not long ago the writer Sherman Alexie missed one of his readings, standing up fans at the Queen Anne Book Company, a store in Seattle. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2013-11-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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"City of Night" was not the first overtly gay-themed book but it may be the most unapologetic, a searing screed of life on the edge.I spent part of Wednesday afternoon at UCLA, on a panel to celebrate the 50th anniversary of John Rechy’s novel “City of Night,” newly reissued to commemorate the... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2013-10-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Novelist Scott Turow's 'Identical' is a compulsively readable crime story about brothers, feuding families and a long-ago murder.Over the course of nine novels, Scott Turow's Kindle County has become one the best-known settings in American literature. While fictional locations are not uncommon... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2013-10-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Whether publishers want it or not, the Netflix model is coming to the book business.The San Francisco startup Scribd, best known as a site for posting PDFs of documents, announced Tuesday it is launching a multi-platform digital book subscription service that will provide access to a wide range... Continue reading at Crains New York
[ Crains New York | 2013-10-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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James McBride takes liberties as he visits the story of white abolitionist John Brown through the eyes of a young slave in 'The Good Lord Bird.'John Brown, the white abolitionist who sought to free black slaves with the barrel of a gun, is a recurring character in American literature. He's one... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2013-08-31 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Last Monday night, Mark Zuckerberg published a post announcing Facebook's new initiative to bring Internet access to the developing world. The blueprint for internet.org mapped out how Facebook and a host of phone company allies might connect an additional 5 billion people online through more... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2013-08-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Times Book Critic David L. Ulin reflects on DOMA and writer John Rechy.John Rechy should be proud. It was his 1963 novel "City of Night" ¿ the story of a gay street hustler that took place, in part, in downtown¿s Pershing Square ¿ that helped carve out a place for gay writing in American literature. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2013-06-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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New! For the July 1, 2013 issue (reservation deadline June 17, 2013): Some call it multicultural, some call it Africana, some call it a “special collection”; but whatever it’s called, the procurement of materials that reflect black culture is a part of a librarian’s job, and we wanted to hear... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2013-06-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Communities secretary Eric Pickles has described worries about the future of public libraries as... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-12-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The launch of a government review into ebook lending in public libraries has been met with a... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-09-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Book chain Selexyz, not long ago the dominant force in Dutch high street bookselling, is on the... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-03-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Benedicte Page Publication Date: Tue, 16/08/2011 - 11:17 The government and local authorities are not fulfilling the statutory duties laid out in the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964, according to the man who drafted it. read more Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-08-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Benedicte Page Publication Date: Fri, 05/08/2011 - 12:43 The Women's Institute has launched an e-petition in support of public libraries. The petition calls for the value of libraries to be recognised at both local and national levels and asks the government "to honour both its... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-08-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Zinio announced today its partnership with Recorded Books, making thousands of digital magazines accessible in public libraries throughout the US, Canada, Australia and UK. Continue reading at Folio Magazine
[ Folio Magazine | 2011-06-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Bookseller Staff Publication Date: Mon, 06/06/2011 - 08:59 The outgoing Children's Laureate Anthony Browne has warned society "will pay the price in the long term" for closing school and public libraries. In a letter to his successor, Browne urged them to campaign against their... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-06-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Benedicte Page Publication Date: Tue, 24/05/2011 - 08:38 Annie Mauger, chief executive of CILIP, is to call on the Women's Institute to campaign for public libraries when she addresses the organisation's annual general meeting in Liverpool on 8th June. The WI, which has a 210,000... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-05-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Benedicte Page Publication Date: Thu, 12/05/2011 - 09:13 The Crime Writers Association (CWA) is asking each of its members to do at least three events a year for their local library as part of a campaign to support the public library service in the face of widespread cutbacks. "We... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-05-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Benedicte Page Publication Date: Wed, 13/04/2011 - 11:06 Library campaigner Tim Coates called on publishers to get involved in the fight to save public libraries, warning that the 500 currently threatened with closure will be followed by many more without action to protect the... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-04-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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It doesn't seem so long ago that we used to gawp at the occasional postage stamps that would appear on a letter from the USSR: oversized, bright images extolling the successes of Communist endeavour. Soviet books in contrast were distinctly drab affairs whose covers would have appealed to few in... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2011-04-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Beginning in March, ebooks from HarperCollins may be lent by public libraries only 26 times before the license expires. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2011-02-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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