Turning literature into a numbers game makes some sense for the book trade, but none for readersWe may be halfway through January already, but the spirit of new year is still in full swing over in San Francisco, where the 2014 Goodreads Reading Challenge goes from strength to strength to strength. More than 240,000 of Goodreads' 25 million members have already committed to reading more than 14m books this year, pledging to get through them at an average of more than a book a week. And many fans of books will say hurrah for that. I reckon I'm pretty much in favour of books and literature, too, but the Goodreads Reading Challenge just sets my teeth on edge.It starts right there in the name. Since when was reading any kind of challenge? Isn't it supposed to be fun? Maybe not for children still learning to differentiate their Perfect Peters from their Horrid Henrys, or for the one in six UK adults who still struggle with literacy, but Goodreads is a site for people who are already "readers" . I don't think they have schoolchildren in mind when they suggest you should "raise your reading ambitions" and it certainly doesn't look like a scheme designed to help adult learners "make it to the final chapter". All this talk of pledging, of targets, of tracking your progress, is just another step in the marketisation of the reading experience, another stage in the commodification of literary culture.We know that literacy correlates with better social outcomes, that literary fiction... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2014-01-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
New research by the Pew Internet and American Life Project shows that the percentage of American adults who read an ebook in the past year has risen to 28 percent, up from 23 percent in 2012. Yet the tree book isn't dead yet, at least in the popularity sense, as the results show most ebook... Continue reading at Betanews
[ Betanews | 2014-01-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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For the past 15 years or so, poets and poetry lovers around the world have earmarked January 17 as a day to pay tribute to the late poet and pacifist William Stafford (1914–1993) with public readings from his works. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-01-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Last week, Ruth Rendell claimed that reading novels is a dying art. Sadly, she might have a pointNo one can say precisely why John Williams's novel Stoner has become a bestseller almost 50 years after its first publication. After all, plenty of books, "forgotten" or otherwise, are recommended by... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-01-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Reading a novel stimulates the brain for days, US researchers have found. The study,... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-12-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Much as we admired the potential of the YotaPhone in our recent review, we just couldn't overlook its lack of support for popular e-reading platforms like Amazon Kindle and Google Books. That problem hasn't been solved just yet, but things are ... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2013-12-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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If Jackie French gets her way the nation's children's books will be a lot stickier and messier. Continue reading at The Sydney Morning Herald
[ The Sydney Morning Herald | 2013-12-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Mark Coker of Smashwords, which recently inked a major content deal with Scribd, weighs in on how the all-you-can-read model changes the way we read, how authors make creative choices, and how everyone gets paid.Is a "Netflix for ebooks" nearing viability? Yesterday, Smashwords, the largest... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2013-12-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The books will be reissued in both trade paperback and ebook formats, and will feature updated interiors and new cover treatments. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2013-12-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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2013 hasn't been especially kind to Facebook. The Facebook Home app launcher, announced in April, was poorly received by consumers. Then, in June, the social media service fell under the scrutiny of privacy advocates as information surfaced about Silicon Valley's relationship with the NSA. But... Continue reading at PC World
[ PC World | 2013-12-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The fast-growing news-feature website leads the league in approvals. Is that because it publishes less rather than more?The driving belief for news websites is that more (that's more stories, features, videos, blogs) equals more hits and thus more money. But what if less can also equal more... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2013-12-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The books industry still underestimates the disruptive power of Jeff Bezos's awesome ambitionSo Amazon are the bad guys, again. At least according to Harper's Magazine they are. For the former Amazon employee James Marcus, Brad Stone "drops the ball" in his biography of Jeff Bezos, The... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2013-12-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Australian authors and critics sift through the piles of books they read in 2013 to highlight the treasures they found. Continue reading at The Sydney Morning Herald
[ The Sydney Morning Herald | 2013-12-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A seasonal selection of new (and not so new) books about language that are anything but dullBooks about English fall into various categories, mostly offputting ones: the academic, rarely of much interest, and often incomprehensible, to the general reader; the lament for a (mythical) golden age... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2013-12-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Morrissey's entertaining autobiography is a burnishing of his image, not a glimpse beneath the surfaceSo much about Morrissey has hardened into caricature over the course of his three-decade musical career — he's a megalomaniac! A sad sack! Perhaps even a racist! — that you might expect him to... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2013-12-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The magazine was once the most hotly anticipated Sunday read. Now it's been eclipsed by the showy T style publicationTwo magazines, both published by the New York Times, arrived in my house over the weekend, one thin, the other thick.The thin one, The New York Times Magazine, is largely about... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2013-12-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Under the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia's reading culture was destroyed, but over the past five years it has returned with the help of a revitalized publishing industry. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-12-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Despite being digitally savvy Taiwanese readers are dedicated to print and ebooks remain just 2% of the market — though change is afoot. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-12-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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I read while traveling, waiting for meetings, in the evening, and especially on vacation. As you can see, I'm still pretty much an old-school print guy, because I like to jot notes in the margins, but I assume I'll move over to ebooks when annotation features get better. Continue reading at Wired
[ Wired | 2013-12-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A new deal with Penguin UK means a greater variety of books for the insurgent platform. Continue reading at The Atlantic
[ The Atlantic | 2013-12-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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In an interview with Poynter back at the beginning of November, BuzzFeed book editor Isaac Fitzgerald said that the site will not include negative reviews. "Why waste breath talking smack about something? You see it in so many old media-type places, the scathing takedown rip. If you can’t say... Continue reading at Betanews
[ Betanews | 2013-12-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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