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The characters on this show have been spotted reading Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling, 50 Shades of Grey by E.L. James, and The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. Follow these links to check out the books featured on the first season and the second season.
Looking for something good to read this summer?
TED Talks speakers Elizabeth Gilbert, Melinda Gates, Bill Gates, Rashida Jones, Clay Shirky, Uzoamaka Maduka, Amanda Palmer, Stanley McChrystal and Blood Orange have put together their lists of recommended reads.
Check it out: "Summer: the season for cracking open a good book under the shade of a tree. Below, we’ve compiled about 70 stellar book recommendations from members of the TED community. Warning: not all of these books can be classified as beach reads. And we think that is a good thing."
The British GCSE exam board has dropped U.S. literary classics from John Steinbeck and Harper Lee from its English Literature syllabus in a move to push for a more British-centric curriculum.
According to the new document issued by the exam board, "students should study a range of high quality, intellectually challenging, and substantial whole texts in detail. These must include:
at least one play by Shakespeare
at least one 19th century novel 2
a selection3 of poetry since 1789, including representative Romantic poetry fiction or drama from the British Isles from 1914 onwards."
The change has prompted criticism from writers and readers online, leading many people to believe that the books were banned. British education secretary Michael Gove has defended the move, claiming that the books are not banned. "Teachers are as free to introduce children to the brilliant writing of Lee, Steinbeck and Miller today as they were yesterday and nothing this government is doing will change that in the future," he told The Guardian.
By Copyright by Fritz W. Guerin, St. Louis. [Public domain]
Gender seems to be perpetually in the air in the world of librarianship and children's literature. I have been in this field for a while now and have worked in some different settings, but my setting of well over 10 years now has been in a school.
Over the past month or so I have been paying more attention than usual to our collection, gender and circulation. I first started off simply with a post-it and two columns. Each time a student would check out a book, I would mark off the column with the gender identification. Every day the results would be similar. The boys and girls in my school check out a similar amount of books.
I then decided to utilize the catalog software. (Anyone who knows me knows that I *love* running statistics!) I started off looking at the top ten patrons (those with the highest number of check outs) for the month, then I ran it back to the last 9 months of the school year. The results? Out of the top 10 patrons, 7 of them are boys. Open the stats up to the top 50 patrons and the gender mix gets closer - 26 girls and 24 boys make up our top 50.
I have many thoughts about the why of this. We have 4 librarians shepherding our students through their years at school. Our early childhood librarian is a man, so one of the students first looks at what a reader looks like is Jesse. We are very mindful about the books we share with our students, and we try incredibly hard to make sure there is a variety with characters who are diverse in all sorts of ways. When we find stereotypes, we talk about them with the students. We don't go in for the "Girl's Read" "Guys Read" variety of booklists or book talks. In fact, two of my favorite anecdotes about assumptions helped make me more aware of my own gender bias after being steeped in this girls vs boys culture my whole life. We have a boy who is a super reader, and he mostly (to my knowledge) was a reader of graphic novels. He pretty much read everything we had for his age group by the time he was done with 4th grade. At the end of the year, I ask the students to reflect and I ask them their favorite title. His favorite title of all time? The Penderwicks by Birdsall. We also had a group of middle school boys who quietly came into the library and methodically checked out every single Clique book. They didn't hide them, read them out in the open, and felt no shame along the way.
It's really up to the adults in the room to set the tone and fight against the pink and blue tide. Create a reading culture, make sure you are not perpetuating the stereotype by handing boys sports books and girls friendship books. Highlight books that get outside of the gender box. Remember, there are no such thing as boy books and girl books, no matter what some marketing departments might say.
0 Comments on Sunday Musings - Gender and Reading - Gendered Reading as of 5/25/2014 11:08:00 AM
Guest post by Melinda Brasher
One of the hardest writing skills to master is the art of knowing what to take out. Many rough drafts are guilty of repetition and over-explanation. Consider the dangers of spoon-feeding your readers. At best, you'll come off as lacking subtlety. You'll rob your readers of the chance to exercise their brains. At worst, you'll annoy them or insult their
0 Comments on Trust your Readers as of 5/7/2014 6:44:00 AM
The Bible is the most popular book of all time among Americans, according to a new survey by Harris Interactive. The company surveyed 2,234 U.S. adults online between March 12 and 17, 2014. The Bible also topped the list back in 2008, when the company last did the survey.
The Uni Project is preparing a series of pop up reading rooms that will be moving around New York City in April and May.
These outdoor reading zones will provide books to the general public. Check it out: “Based in New York City, we operate reading rooms that bring architect-designed structures, high quality books, and dedicated staff, to the city’s plazas, parks, and public spaces. We partner with community-based organizations and our circuit prioritizes underserved NYC neighborhoods.”
The reading rooms will be in Clinton Hill on April 25th; in the Lower East Side on May 4-9th; on Roosevelt Island May 10-11th; in Fort Greene on May 16th; and in Tompkins Square Park and Washington Square Park May 28-29th and June 13th.
Silent reading parties are not just happening in Seattle. A group of readers in New York have formed Silent Reading Party NYC, a once a month event in New York in which readers gather in a bar to silently read in a group setting.
The next one will take place this Sunday April 13th at Muchmore’s in Brooklyn from 7-9pm. Brandee Younger will play harp music to set the mood.
Check it out: “Silent Reading Party NYCis a free monthly event that offers people the chance to drink together and read to themselves in the comfort of a quiet bar with cozy couches and good lighting.”
The myth that publishers have stacks of manuscripts and that writers have to line up in a long queue was deflated by Jennifer Bacia during her talk at the Gold Coast Writers Association meeting . ‘Actually, that is not the case’ she stated. According to Jennifer, publishers are always looking for something that will make […]
Reddit has updated its policy, banning a list of classic books from the subreddit discussion of books including: 1984 by George Orwell, American Gods by Neil Gaiman, and A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin.
“There has always been one problem in /r/Books that is constantly brought up by the community, which is that the same books are brought up over and over. Good discussion is stifled by repetition. Well, we’re going to combat that problem,” explains the announcement.As of April 1st, discussions started involving books on banned books list will be deleted, and repeat offenders will be kicked out of the forum.
As some commenters point out, the ban is set to take place on April 1st, so this could just be an April Fool’s Day joke. We’ve reposted the entire list of banned books after the jump for you to explore further. Reddit also pointed out that this list could grow.
Socioeconomic background has a lot to do with how much people read in the UK. According to a new report from Booktrust, which includes survey results from 1,500 adults, the more money you have, the more likely you are to read and vice versa.
Twenty-seven percent of adults from the poorest socio-economic backgrounds revealed that never read books, while only 13 percent of the richest people surveyed admitted to never reading books. In addition, the report found that 62 percent of richest respondents admitted reading daily or weekly, whereas 42 percent of the poorest respondents read that often. Not surprisingly, richer people own twice as many books as poorer people.
Despite discrepancies in access to books and the time spent reading, most of the interview subjects agreed that reading improves their lives. According to the report, 76 percent of survey respondents said that reading improves their lives. Broken down into socioeconomic background, 83 percent of rich adults and 72 percent of poor adults admitted this. (Via The BBC).
eBook subscription company Scribd has tabulated the most popular book by state throughout the 50 states in the US.
American Gods by Neil Gaiman is the top choice among readers in Illinois; The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption and Pee by Sarah Silvermanreigned in New York; Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie was the top choice among readers in Texas; and The Family Vault by Charlotte MacLeod led the list for Vermont. The list takes into account, not just book sales or downloads, but the actual reading habits of its 80 million monthly readers.
Parade has the entire list at this link. The Washington Post has a great map to help you visualize who likes which books a
The story of the oldest known wild bird in the world. At 62+, she hatched a new chick in February, 2013. Read her remarkable story. A biography in text and art.
What do you do when your friends or your editors don’t like your story?
This has indeed happened to me several times, the most recent on a current WIP. One of my reliable first readers has been hesitant to say much about this story and I realized that it’s because she doesn’t like it. The story is a tragedy and while I soften the blow at the end, it does end tragically. READER said that the ending was a “sharp left turn.” But for me, it’s a straight arrow right to the heart of the story.
What to do? Revise to please my reader, or keep it “my way”?
I would be a fool to ignore feedback! Of course, I need to know how others view my stories and where the communication breaks down. I will always revise to make sure I am communicating clearly. What is in my head needs to be clearly reproduced in the reader’s head through the medium of words. That’s communication through writing.
But that’s not the case here. Instead, there’s a gap in vision, or an honest difference in how another person view story and how a story should unfold. READER wanted a happy ending.
There are actually four ways a story can end:
Happy/Happy. The protagonist gets what s/he wants and that makes him/her happy.
Happy/Sad. The protagonist gets what s/he wants and that makes him/her sad.
Sad/Happy. The protagonist fails to get what s/he wants, but in the end, that makes him/her happy.
Sad/Sad. The protagonist fails to get what s/he wants and that makes him/her sad.
My story is the third kind. The protagonist does not get what she wants, but in the end, her goals are accomplished in a different way and she is content and peaceful about it all. I actually think this is a more realistic ending, more true to life. How many times do you get what you want, exactly how you want it? Not often! Yet much of literature is the Happy/Happy kind of ending. That’s great: I do those endings most of the time, too. But this ending satisfies my ideas for this story.
You can’t get a Happy Face from readers all the time. But I always need a Happy Face from myself.
I won’t change it. It makes me sad that READER doesn’t like the story because I chose to end it in an unusual way. I want READER to always like my story. But even when she doesn’t, we remain friends. Instead, I need to realize that my friends, family and even critique partners or editors are not always the best audience for a particular story. And that’s OK.
The downtown Boston area will become the first literary cultural district within the United States. The coordinators behind this initiative will work on boosting tourism, taking part in literary events, and offering for families within the neighborhood.
The initiative came into fruition after a team of book-related organizations won the Adams Planning Grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. This group includes the Grub Street nonprofit, the Boston Public Library, the Boston Athenaeum, the City of Boston, the Drum and the Boston Book Festival.
Legal scholar and activist Ron McCallum gave a TED Talk called “How Technology Allowed Me to Read.” Born blind, McCallum is “a voracious reader.”
We’ve embedded the video above–how has technology empowered you as a reader? McCallum explored how reading technologies helped him become a successful lawyer, an academic researcher and a lifelong reader. Here’s more from the TED blog:
In this talk, McCallum takes us on a tour of the people and technology that allowed him to read — from those who transcribed into braille to the maker of the first blind computer with speech synthesizer, to the inventor behind the Kurzweil reader that scan books and reads them aloud. It’s a fascinating look at something sighted people tend to take for granted.
The National Endowment for the Arts released its annual Public Participation in the Arts report, revealing that 54 percent of adults read books that were not required for work or school last year. Are you surprised?
Beyond that figure, 45 percent of adults read novels or short stories. As you can see by the chart embedded above, electronic media was the dominant medium for art consumption. Check it out:
Adults are included in this category if they did at least one of the following types of reading in the preceding 12 months: Books not required for work or school (54 percent of adults) Literary reading (47 percent of adults). Types of literature may have included: Novels or short stories (45 percent of adults) Poetry (7 percent) Plays (3 percent) … adults’ rates of literary reading (novels or short stories, poetry, and plays) dropped back to 2002 levels (from 50 percent in 2008 to 47 percent in 2012).
Glo surveyed 500 people and its editors to compile a list called “30 books every woman should read by 30.” The list includes titles from fifteen different genre categories.
Some of the books that made the cut include Bossypants by Tina Fey (celebrity memoir), The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (biography), and Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (mystery). What titles would you add to this list? Do you think this list also applies to men?
For years, the nonprofit has been collecting stories from the family and friends of 9/11 victims. They also created a series of animations based on 9/11 stories. StoryCorps and NPR teamed up for a longer “We Remember” broadcast as well. Here’s more about the project:
StoryCorps set a goal with the 9/11 Memorial to record at least one remembrance for each of the nearly 3,000 people killed in the attacks. To date, StoryCorps has memorialized 583 individual victims—almost a fifth of the 2,983 men, women, and children killed on 9/11 and February 26, 1993. StoryCorps is also collecting stories of rescue workers and survivors. In total, StoryCorps has recorded and archived 1,193 September 11th stories.
Maceration of the Cabernet Sauvignon grapes – source – Wikimedia Commons
Mondays on this blog will be given over to musings on being: a writer (for children), a voracious reader, an MFA student, an expat in New York, a nature advocate, part of the LGBTQ community, a lifelong wanderer, an obsessive observer of human nature, and one who jives to the java bean and the fermentation-flirtation of the Cabernet Sauvignon grape!
While I shall most definitely be writing a post on, ‘Why One Should Read Outside One’s Genre,’ today I espouse the importance as writers of reading the themes, content, forms and genre in which we have rooted our own manuscript. You need to know how your book compares with the competition, and how it is different. Reading your genre is about staying current as an author, just as a teacher or doctor might. Agents and publishers will expect this of you, and you should certainly know on which shelf in a (Indie) bookstore a reader should be able to find your book!
I like to not only read in my genre, but also books that have focused on some of the big themes and subject matter in my story; maybe betrayal, or teenage pregnancy, maybe set in other cultures, or in slang…. You might read to be inspired by form and style. Maybe you are seeking to write in a more literary style, then you could perhaps read Laurie Halse Anderson’s WINTER GIRLS. Since meeting and reading most of the works of author, Ellen Hopkins, I have been fascinated by the form of novels written in verse, and have been reading broadly in this form. I am thrilled that we have on the faculty of the Stony Brook MFA program, Patty McCormick, whose novel in verse, SOLD, has so much of what I want to explore in my own writing.
In which genre are you writing? And/or what theme(s) are you exploring, and what recommendation do you, therefore, have for us? Let me kick off, and let me say that while my novel is at present in prose, I am drawn to a more poetic vehicle for the story.
Genre: Contemporary YA fiction (edgy) Form: narrative prose Themes: Estrangement, abusive parental relationships and/or LGBTQ characters and bullying
My recommendations:
SMOKE by NYT best selling author, Ellen Hopkins and published by Simon and Schuster. I was lucky to read an ARC of this novel in verse, which is released tomorrow, September, 10th 2013. I loved BURN and was not disappointed with this sequel. SMOKE addresses big themes – courage and survival, abuse, hypocrisy and silence in religious communities (LDS), gay bullying, neglect, love… the writing is quick and sparse and visually meaningful. All the characters are 3+ dimensional. If you have never read a novel in verse, I highly recommend any of Hopkin’s novels. SMOKE is also included in this recent list of Top Ten YA Releases in Sept 2013.
Okay, I have not yet read FREAKBOY, a YA novel in verse by Kristin Elizabeth Clark, which is going to be published on October 22nd, 2013, by Farrar, Strauss and Geroux, but I have discussed the book with the author and am a huge fan of her writing and very happy to see a book embracing these themes. I am convinced this will be a book with significant ripples in the YA book community. Just this week it received a starred review -“*”This gutsy, tripartite poem explores a wider variety of identities—cis-, trans-, genderqueer—than a simple transgender storyline, making it stand out.“ — Kirkus Review, starred review.
OCTOBER MOURNING by Lesléa Newman, published by Candlewick, September 25th, 2012. “A masterful poetic exploration of the impact of Matthew Shepard’s murder on the world.”
On the night of October 6, 1998, a gay twenty-one-year-old college student named Matthew Shepard was lured from a Wyoming gay bar by two young men pretending to be gay. Matthew was savagely beaten, tied to a fence, and left to die. October Mourning, is the author’s deep personal response to the events of that tragic day. It is a novel in verse, but quite different from the previous two as Newman creates fictitious monologues from various points of view, including the fence Matthew was tied to and the girlfriends of the murderers. This is a heartbreaking series of sixty-eight poems in several different poetic forms offering the reader an enduring tribute to Matthew Shepard’s life.
Your turn! Please add your recommendations in the comments below.
Jane Friedman, a former editor at Writer’s Digest and now a superb blogger and commenter on the state of the publishing industry, spoke at the 2013 Midwest Writers Workshop about building a readership or audience on her personal blog at www.janefriedman.com. When she left Writer’s Digest, her blog there had a great following, but that belonged to WD. How did she regain a significant following of 750,000 readers/year? Watch Jane discuss her strategies here.
What is the best book to bring to a baby shower? Some baby shower hosts ask attendees to bring their favorite books, a great way to build a baby’s first library and help new parents find great books.
Reddit user Kincsem recently had a baby shower and shared her books in the photo album embedded above: “I requested guests’ favorite baby books in lieu of cards for my baby shower last summer. The result was wonderful. My dad and my brother moved the room to tears.”
Martha Stewart‘s website has a long article about a book-themed baby shower if you need more inspiration.
ReadWave has just announced the launch of a new reading widget, that aims to revolutionize the way that stories are shared and authors promote themselves online. The widget allows bloggers and website owners to embed stories online in a compact form.
The ReadWave widget is the first reading widget to allow readers to “follow” the writer. When a reader follows a writer they are added to the writer’s fanbase and can receive updates on all of the writer’s future stories. The widget is designed specifically to help writers build up a fanbase and grow their readership online. The widget is also the first to be directly integrated with Facebook, so that content is automatically shared via social media.
Raoul Tawadey, CEO of ReadWave commented, “The ReadWave widget doesn’t simply provide the technology for embedding stories online, it also provides a legal framework for re-posting other people’s content within the bounds of copyright law. Every day, millions of indie writers post up their creative writing for free on their personal websites with the aim of attracting as many readers as possible. Currently other website owners can’t repost those stories due to copyright law. Our widget eliminates this copyright problem, and enables anyone to post your story anywhere without limits, and it does so in a way that ensures the original writer is reaping the rewards.”
Existing widgets use a predefined page size, so when the widget is made smaller the text is made smaller. The ReadWave widget is the first reading widget where the width and height are fully customizable and the text automatically adjusts itself to fit the space available.
“The ReadWave widget is great news for website owners,” says ReadWave’s Chief Technology Officer, Simon Van Blerk. “Rather than linking to someone else’s website, the ReadWave widget allows you to keep traffic on your own website. This means website owners can retain visitors and keep them engaged for longer.”
ReadWave is a community of readers and writers who love to discover and share new stories from contemporary writers. Readers can access thousands of stories and read them for free on mobile or desktop. Writers can use ReadWave to build up a fanbase and market their stories online. ReadWave puts writers in touch with the readers who are just right for them.
0 Comments on ReadWave Launch Widget for Author Promotion as of 4/3/2013 6:13:00 PM
Reading Rainbow host, actor and book app creator LeVar Burton recently tweeted that hosting the quiz show Jeopardy would be “my dream job.” His tweet inspired an online petition that is already nearing 1,000 signatures.
This GalleyCat editor agrees that Burton would make a “intelligent and kind host” for the show (he already starred as a celebrity contestant).
What if Quentin Tarantino‘s screenplays were published as vintage paperbacks?
Artist Sharm Murugiahcreated book covers for these movies, evoking the director’s work in a few simple lines of a paperback cover. Above, we’ve embedded his $12.48 art print that showcases all the the covers at once (along with a varient print for Django Unchained). Check it out:
Fine art print on natural white, matte, ultra smooth, 100% cotton rag, acid and lignin free archival paper using an advanced digital dry ink method to ensure vibrant image quality. Custom trimmed with 1″ border for framing.
60 Minutesfeatured Pussy Riot last night, the Russian punk band with three members sentenced to two years in prison for staging a protest performance against Vladimir Putin inside a Moscow cathedral. Check it out:
Since he’s been in power in Russia, Vladimir Putin has steadily cracked-down on democratic freedoms and the protesters who support them – a crackdown that intensified after his reelection as president a year ago. Nothing symbolizes this better than the arrest last March of a group of young feminists after they staged a protest against Putin in Moscow’s largest cathedral.
The news program also interviewed members of Pussy Riot currently in hiding. Below, we’ve rounded up the literature that inspired these dissident voices.
The Bible is the most popular book of all time among Americans, according to a new survey by Harris Interactive. The company surveyed 2,234 U.S. adults online between March 12 and 17, 2014. The Bible also topped the list back in 2008, when the company last did the survey.
The Uni Project is preparing a series of pop up reading rooms that will be moving around New York City in April and May.
Silent reading parties are not just 
Reddit has 
Socioeconomic background has a lot to do with how much people read in the UK. According to a new report from Booktrust, which includes survey results from 1,500 adults, the more money you have, the more likely you are to read and vice versa.
eBook subscription company Scribd has tabulated the most popular book by state throughout the 50 states in the US.
The downtown 
What books should you read before turning 30?
As we remember those who died on September 11, 2001, you might want to listen to a few 
