A two-story library and conservation facility has opened within the ancient Coptic monastery complex at Deir al-Surian in the Egyptian desert. The archives there “include the earliest dated Christian literary manuscript (AD411), the earliest dated Biblical manuscript (AD459) and the earliest dated Gospel manuscript (AD510).”
Category: publishing
Falling To Pieces – Fragmented Fiction Puts It Together
“The comparison with musical polyphony is fitting because, as with the counterpoint, the voices in these recent novels are made to fit together with a virtuosity akin to that demonstrated by the great contrapuntal composers. Instead of ‘messy cacophony’ these novels delight with their complicated coherence.”
Why Do Children’s Books Perpetuate Gender Stereotypes?
“Mothers are much more likely to be portrayed nurturing and caring for children, and men are more likely to work outside of the home. These depictions have not significantly changed over time, so that these storybook characters often inhabit a bygone, male breadwinner-female homemaker era.”
Remembering The Battle Over The Color Purple
“In 1983, [Alice] Walker became the first African-American woman to win both the Pulitzer and National Book awards for fiction, amid all hell breaking loose. What Walker has defined as ‘womanism’ caused an uproar in many corners of the African-American establishment, full of indignance at what was judged her ‘negative imagery’ of the black male.”
Star Wars Books Are Thriving
“It’s actually gotten to the point where there are really hardcore Star Wars fans that prefer the books to the movies.”
Four Big Questions About Audiobooks
“I would love to give my whole audiobook collection to my academic library. Even assuming that they would want it (would they?), this is impossible. As far as I know, there is no way to transfer a collection.”
How To Pick A Pseudonym
“People keep saying that you don’t want to be ‘A’ [for a surname] because you don’t want to be too far up the shelf, and you don’t want to be ‘Y’ because you’re in the bottom right hand corner. You want to be in the busy middle.”
How Software Exposed JK Rowling’s Fiction
“I was testing things like word length, sentence length, paragraph length, frequency of particular words and the pattern of punctuation.”
How Data Will Transform Our Understanding Of The American Novel
“Can the technologies of Big Data, which are transforming so many areas of life, change our understanding of American novels? After conducting research with Google’s Ngram database, which tabulates the frequency of words used in more than five million books, I believe the answer is yes.”
Google Bought Frommers, & The Brand Died – But The Founder Bought It Back
“Last year, Google paid about $23 million for the brand, saying that it would incorporate the Frommer’s content from its books, mobile apps and Web site into local reviews. This year, it sold the brand back to Mr. Frommer for an undisclosed price. By the end of 2014, Mr. Frommer expects to release as many as 80 books. “