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22 votes
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Tennessee school board bans Holocaust graphic novel ‘Maus’ – author Art Spiegelman condemns the move as ‘Orwellian’
28 votes -
Joan Didion, ‘new journalist’ who explored culture and chaos, dies at 87
4 votes -
Bill Nighy stars as the voice of Terry Pratchett
7 votes -
How to save the novel - self-censorship and problematic language in modern fiction
4 votes -
Abdulrazak Gurnah wins the 2021 Nobel prize in literature
6 votes -
A story about living in nature and the value of culture captures the spirit of Finland – Lizzie Enfield explores the remarkable legacy of 'Seitsemän veljestä'
9 votes -
Nawal El Saadawi, Egyptian author and women’s rights icon, dies
7 votes -
HG Wells fans spot numerous errors on Royal Mint's new £2 coin
9 votes -
"If the aliens lay eggs, how does that affect architecture?" - Science fiction writers on how they build their worlds
6 votes -
Explore Indigenous futurisms with these science fiction and fantasy books by indigenous authors
8 votes -
Who did JK Rowling become? Deciphering the most beloved, most reviled children’s book author in history
29 votes -
Legendary science fiction author Ben Bova has passed at the age of 88, due to Covid
10 votes -
Alan Dean Foster—author of novelizations of Star Wars: A New Hope, the Alien franchise, and more—says that Disney has not paid any royalties since acquiring the rights to his books
20 votes -
Harlan Ellison's The Last Dangerous Visions may finally be published, after five-decade wait
7 votes -
Pippi and the Moomins - The antics in postwar Nordic children’s books left propaganda and prudery behind. We need this madcap spirit more than ever
15 votes -
Twenty-five years of His Dark Materials: Philip Pullman on the journey of a lifetime
14 votes -
Louise Glück wins Nobel Prize for Literature
6 votes -
Virtual book events, Monday Sept 21st - Saturday Sept 26th
3 votes -
Can you recommend authors who deal with loneliness?
They can be modern or classic (or modern classic:), in any language. Preferably famous and influential authors, but hidden gems are also fine. Also, I'd really prefer fiction, but philosophical...
They can be modern or classic (or modern classic:), in any language. Preferably famous and influential authors, but hidden gems are also fine.
Also, I'd really prefer fiction, but philosophical books are all right too.
18 votes -
Ocean Vuong joins Margaret Atwood, David Mitchell and Karl Ove Knausgård to lock away work in the Future Library to be published in ninety-four years time
10 votes -
Brandon Sanderson: 'After a dozen rejected novels, you think maybe this isn’t for you'
9 votes -
Signs you're a Black character written by a White author
23 votes -
Frog and Toad (and me)
13 votes -
The weight of James Arthur Baldwin
7 votes -
Is anyone else a Neil Postman fan?
I eventually recommend Neil Postman's writing to anyone I can. These books are absolutely fantastic, especially Technopoly, though I'd also recommend Amusing Ourselves to Death and The End of...
I eventually recommend Neil Postman's writing to anyone I can. These books are absolutely fantastic, especially Technopoly, though I'd also recommend Amusing Ourselves to Death and The End of Education (pun in the title intended).
One of Neil Postman's big contributions to how I think was by explaining an extended notion of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. Instead of trying to insist that different human languages have different ways of communication, Neil Postman makes the assertion that different media, books, oral communication, TV, radio, the internet, have world-views embedded into them. So, you will (almost) never find a serious philosophical discussion in a film. Books, being linear can afford to give a cursory examination, and the person reading can follow at their own pace, while film can't do that. However, films are better at communicating emotion, so the stories in film are more experience/emotion/in-the-moment driven. Postman's argument was better, so ignore the weaknesses in my summary. I'm just trying to give some flavor to the type of things he wrote, like he also predicted how people would communicate on the internet.
The thing which really stands out to me is how Neil Postman was just a good thinker. He wasn't a one hit wonder for ideas. I'd be willing to read his thoughts on just about anything, even if I disagree. So anyway, read him! You won't have any regerts.
5 votes -
Tracking down all of Isaac Asimov's books
10 votes -
Spend some time down the rabbit hole of author-as-gameshow contestant, from Herman Wouk to John le Carré
3 votes -
Algonquin Round Table: How the group of writers became a symbol of the roaring twenties
4 votes -
The case for Stanislaw Lem
10 votes -
One of Sweden's best-known authors, Per Olov Enquist, has died aged 85
8 votes -
Why authors are so angry about the Internet Archive’s Emergency Library
10 votes -
Growing up in Quarantineland: Childhood nightmares in the age of germs prepared me for coronavirus
6 votes -
Here’s a list of authors whose tours have been canceled due to coronavirus, if you’d like to support them by buying books
11 votes -
Clive Cussler, bestselling adventure novelist, dies aged 88
4 votes -
Nedim Yasar, a former gang leader who had turned his back on crime, was shot dead in Copenhagen just as a book about his life was published
6 votes -
James Joyce’s grandson and the death of the stubborn literary executor
7 votes -
Asimov at 100: From epic space operas to rules for robots, the prolific author’s literary legacy endures
9 votes -
Is France still at the center of the French-language literary world? Or, to ask a broader question, is there a center at all?
6 votes -
Jo Nesbø: ‘We should talk about violence against women’
4 votes -
William Gibson, the writer who invented ‘cyberspace’ – and possibly the most influential living sci-fi author – on the challenges of keeping up with a reality even stranger than fiction
16 votes -
Olga Tokarczuk – Nobel Lecture
4 votes -
Author and Norway princess's ex-husband Ari Behn dies aged 47
5 votes -
Jeff VanderMeer, the author of “Annihilation,” brings us fresh horrors with each new book. So why does he remain an optimist?
5 votes -
Protests grow as Peter Handke receives Nobel medal in Sweden – Turkey joined Albania and Kosovo in boycotting Tuesday's Nobel prize ceremony
5 votes -
GQ has selected their favorite books of 2019, and asked each book's author to make their own recommendation
5 votes -
How to live like Jane Austen
4 votes -
Karl Ove Knausgård is to become the sixth contributor to the Future Library, which collects works by contemporary authors that will remain unread until 2114
9 votes -
Is Tolkien's prose really that bad?
Recently I was reading through a discussion on Reddit in which Tolkien's writing and prose were quite heavily criticised. Prior to this I'd never seen much criticism surrounding his writing and so...
Recently I was reading through a discussion on Reddit in which Tolkien's writing and prose were quite heavily criticised. Prior to this I'd never seen much criticism surrounding his writing and so I was wondering what the general consensus here is.
The first time I read through The Lord of the Rings, I found myself getting bored of all the songs and the poems and the large stretches between any action, I felt that the pacing was far too slow and I found that I had to force myself to struggle through the book to get to the exciting parts that I had seen so many times in the films. Upon reading through The Lord of the Rings again recently my experience has been completely different and I've fallen in love with his long and detailed descriptions of nature, and the slower pacing.
Has anyone else experienced something similar when reading his works? Are there more valid criticisms of his prose that extend beyond a craving for the same high-octane action of the films?
13 votes -
Margaret Atwood and Bernardine Evaristo share Booker prize 2019
5 votes