‘What’s up! I can’t read.’ O.C. resident goes viral after schooling left him functionally illiterate (from LA Times):

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-12-28/learning-to-read-one-tiktok-at-a-time

 

STEPH GIVES BOOKS to kids.

https://www.facebook.com/1534778780/posts/pfbid0sLhH7avSFPNnPP55BJh4MQvZckAf4ovTRgE3KaLUMHu7ctujKqT3bpJZ2jeL86yRl/

 These were the top checkouts at NYC's libraries this year

https://apple.news/AJfGT7xMjSTi4jtUc_JodTA

I’M PAST PAGE 400 of the 900 pages—all about ONE DAY. All 900 pages. Imagine all the talk and thoughts and chance meetings and walking past things, sometimes going in a store or a pub. 900 pages of it.

 

Misreading Ulysses

a lecture by Sally Rooney 

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2022/12/07/misreading-ulysses/

THIS IS ‘cityReader’ #65. The main essay I’ve run before. There are new people in the Dept of Ed. They haven’t read this where I explain why I stand there with the sign.

 

KEN BURNS on his new best-selling book ‘OUR AMERICA’. KEN BURNS walks by the sign and me many mornings on his way further downtown. Goes out of his way to say hi. Stops and talks for a minute. I don’t think I’ve ever noticed one person recognize him. This is a good discussion with Walter Isaacson.

https://youtu.be/g_NsogOMWz8

 

How a Local Bookstore Can Make Your Town Richer—In More Than One Way

https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/1/8/local-bookstores

 

Why Celeste Ng calls her new novel, ‘Our Missing Hearts,’ ‘scarily real’.

https://apple.news/ArzyxeDYeRtyw7OtY-qDhYg

 

This Is Your Brain on ‘Deep Reading.’ It’s Pretty Magnificent

The literacy scholar Maryanne Wolf maps out the ways “deep reading” nourishes our capacity for attention, empathy and insight.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/22/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-maryanne-wolf.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

 

The Climate Book, created by Greta Thunberg review – an angry call for action

The environmental activist curates a supergroup of climate experts in a valuable set of essays, which at times risk overwhelming the reader

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/nov/15/the-climate-book-created-by-greta-thunberg-review-an-angry-call-for-action

 The National Book Awards Raised a Middle Finger to Book Bans

"Free people read freely," said Tracie D. Hall, one of the night's honorees.

https://apple.news/AawF92mWhSb-_FD1km341_g

 

Michelle Obama’s new book is self-help — but it goes high (from the LA Times):

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2022-11-15/michelle-obamas-new-book-is-self-help-but-it-goes-high

 

Cinema Speculation by Quentin Tarantino review – bracing and heartfelt collection

The movie-maker’s first book of criticism is fuelled by a breathless energy that makes up for its scattershot approach

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/nov/14/cinema-speculation-by-quentin-tarantino-review-collection-film-criticism

 

Bring Back Love to Education (from the Harvard Graduate School of Education):

https://youtube.com/watch?v=zgcg1PlHRzQ&feature=share

Maurice Sendak Imagined More Than Wild Things

A new exhibition, the first of its kind since the artist's death, showcases his extensive but lesser-known body of work (in ‘Smithsonian’):

https://apple.news/AhLZuxshGR1u4A34_mfb2UQ

Where to start with: Sylvia Plath

You will have heard of the great American poet, but how much of her work have you actually read? This handy primer suggests some good ways in (in ‘The Guardian’):

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/oct/27/where-to-start-with-sylvia-plath

 

The Philosophy of Modern Song by Bob Dylan review – an enlightening listen-along

Dylan meditates on 66 songs he holds dear in an eclectic collection of essays that breathes new life into groundbreaking hits while relishing obscurities and oddities (in ‘The Guardian’):

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/nov/01/the-philosophy-of-modern-song-by-bob-dylan-review

 

‘Hope matters’: Ukrainian and international authors on why literature is important in times of conflict

Ten writers appearing at the Lviv BookForum, run this year in partnership with the Hay festival, discuss why we need books more than ever (in ‘The Guardian’):

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/oct/06/hope-matters-ukrainian-and-international-authors-on-why-literature-is-important-in-times-of-conflict

 

SIGNS from the past that got weathered from being out every weekday. I could use a new one pretty soon. After the first of the year.

 

‘The only thing that you absolutely have to know, is the location of the library.’

                            ― Albert Einstein

 

Libraries Can Unite a Lonely, Divided Nation (from Bloomberg):

https://apple.news/AOziZD1vNSn6u-W4Tke84qw

 

RACHEL CUSK WON’T STAY STILL (from ‘The Atlantic’):

https://apple.news/AkATv0nd3TU6TeMmLhiDVCA

 

                                                                       Hannah Arendt

Sidelined No More: A Reading List of Fiercely Political Women

Eve Fairbanks Recommends Barbara Tuchman, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Ariel Levy, and More

https://lithub.com/sidelined-no-more-a-reading-list-of-fiercely-political-women/

 

A photo on Facebook this week from Shelves Bookstore in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Maira Kalman’s Illustrations of Women Holding Things

From Her Newest Book

https://lithub.com/maira-kalmans-illustrations-of-women-holding-things/

 

SEX,  DEATH, FAMILY. Sharon Olds is still shockingly intimate.

‘No one should read more than one poem at a time from this book’

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/12/magazine/sharon-olds-poetry.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

 

‘Could I understand the people who rushed into the Capitol?’: George Saunders on how stories teach empathy (from ‘The Guardian’):

The Booker-winning author on how fiction unites us as societies become ever more fractured

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/oct/15/could-i-understand-the-people-who-rushed-into-the-capitol-george-saunders-on-how-stories-teach-empathy

 

FROM A GORDON PARKS BOOK of his photos I looked through yesterday in Strand bookstore. Mobile, Alabama in the 1950s. I know such signs existed from seeing pictures like this in books. I think I remember small signs saying that at gas station drinking fountains and restrooms when my family would drive to Florida when I was young.

For five days now I’ve been reading five pages of Ulysses in the morning. I enjoy the ritual of it, and the language which has a music to it. I don’t understand every line. But so what. I don’t understand every line of some of my favorite songs. I’ve read Ulysses twice before. 30 years ago I read five pages every morning like now in a first floor apartment in Lakewood, Ohio. I read it out loud. I maybe had a cigarette. 

 

Libraries feel attacked — but not like the ‘freedom libraries’ of 1964

https://apple.news/AsSePXnQQTmWJnII2qRvnqw

 

The Books We Read Too Late—And That You Should Read Now

One of the great, bittersweet pleasures of life is finishing a title and thinking about how it might have affected you—if only you’d found it sooner. (from ‘The Atlantic’):

https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2022/09/books-younger-selves-recommendations/671601/

 

    Jan Bolgla and Bob Roarty have owned and operated Atlanta Vintage Books for more than 16 years.

How independent bookstores help in the fight against book banning and why it matters (from NPR):

https://apple.news/AImh7kGLuS1W586Ygs5IHxw

 

These fall graphic novels reflect the diversity of the genre (from NPR):

https://apple.news/AOd8Ozp-pR0-H_TLKpw7Suw

 100 years of James Joyce’s Ulysses. A wonderful video.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=y12yhnkY0pg&feature=share

 

The Essential Judy Blume

For  50 years, her books have educated, entertained and connected young readers. Whether you want to revisit a classic or inspire a new fan, here’s what to read. (from the ‘New York Times’):

https://www.nytimes.com/article/best-judy-blume-books.html

The ‘dangerous’ books too powerful to read.

Forty years on from the launch of Banned Books Week, censorship is once again on the rise. John Self considers the long and ignoble global history of book-banning.

https://apple.news/AJG5i-0B-SeelVXjRdd-aFQ

 

Elizabeth Strout on What It’s Like to Write After Exiting Obscurity

In Conversation with Brad Listi on Otherppl

https://lithub.com/elizabeth-strout-on-what-its-like-to-write-after-exiting-obscurity/

 

Command by Lawrence Freedman review – inside the war room

From Korea to Ukraine, a brilliant study of the politics and personalities that drive modern conflicts (from ‘The Guardian’):

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/sep/17/command-by-lawrence-freedman-review-inside-the-war-room?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

 

If a book is banned, then read it. A new idea is a terrible thing to waste (from the ‘Miami Herald’):

https://apple.news/AVtE1bwMfT5iwRRzk3K0fww

Why a New Brooklyn Bookstore Is Cause for Celebration

It may be premature to herald a true renaissance of the printed page, but it does seem anecdotally like more and more people are getting interested in books again. 

https://apple.news/AX985XQeCSqGylPCNivu9CA

 

Margaret Atwood Doesn't Think We're Doomed (a video)

'Doomerism is not helpful'

https://apple.news/A_XJnq35ZSUe_7RLzu2wLSA

 

I WALKED over to West 10th to Three Lives bookstore an hour ago and got these. There were many others worth getting. Three Lives is one of those stores. They know how to stock windows and shelves and countertops and tabletops. Everywhere you turn.

 

I recurrently say to myself that I’ll stop getting the ‘New York Times’ delivered to me. Hardly anyone else in my Manhattan apartment building gets it. A dozen maybe get it out of 250 apartments. They probably read it online. I do too. But I’m in the morning habit of getting a paper. And sometimes like this morning’s photo of ‘Rolling Stone’ founder Jann Wenner the graphics are so large and strong that I’m glad it gets dropped outside my door. I can hear it land. 

 

Public Libraries Face Threats to Funding and Collections as Book Bans Surge

"We haven’t seen this volume of censorship efforts in 30 or more years.”

https://apple.news/ALAP1sSKrQS-ZsxzsOXVC9Q

Yevgenia Belorusets' "Lucky Breaks" portrays Ukrainian women whose lives have been upended by the conflict with Russia

Five Ukrainian authors you should read

As the International Literature Festival Berlin starts, it is calling for a worldwide reading of Ukrainian literature. Here is a selection of modern voices.

https://apple.news/AcileO3g-RXKep-SFp7rIWg

A clear, graphically-bright look at Anne Frank and her diary (from the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.):

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/anne-frank-diary

Ian McEwan on aging, legacy and the attack on his friend Salman Rushdie: ‘It’s beyond the edge of human cruelty’

The author’s new novel explores how global events shape individual lives – but nothing prepared him for this ‘dark moment’ (from ‘The Guardian’):

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/sep/03/ian-mcewan-on-ageing-legacy-the-attack-on-salman-rushdie-beyond-edge-of-human-cruelty?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

 

Paper books linked to stronger readers in an international study

There’s a lot to like about digital books. They’re lighter in the backpack and often cheaper than paper books. But a new international report suggests that physical books may be important to raising children who become strong readers.

https://apple.news/ASdQb8gWORfK1wF5LhyvGDA