News & Notes is a weekly Saturday post featuring book- and publishing-related news, links to interesting articles and opinion pieces, giveaways on this and other blogs, and other cool stuff.
I missed doing a News & Notes post last week due to unavoidable circumstances (i.e., moving our daughter into college!) My apologies, and I hope you enjoy this week’s post!
Books & Ebooks in the News:
- Banned Books Week 2014 is only weeks away. The week, which brings attention to the problem of censorship, will run from Sept. 21-28. Go to bannedbooksweek.org for information on how libraries, schools, etc. can participate.
- Reading electronically lowers plot recall and presumably affects reading retention more broadly. (Washington Post; also The Bookseller) But Digital Book World’s Jeremy Greenfield points out some of the problems and limitations of the study.
- World’s largest SF library may be in trouble. (sciencefiction.com)
- Kobo Debuts Waterproof Aura H2O Reader (Digital Book World)
- And B&N & Samsung unveiled the Nook Galaxy Tab 4, a co-branded Nook tablet “optimized for reading.”
- The 2014 American Poets Prizes were announced on Aug. 26. (poets.org)
- Ellora’s Cave CEO Confirms Amazon Price Drop, possibly due to changes in Amazon’s search algorithms. It’s hurting the company pretty badly. (Publishers Weekly)
- New searchable database of 12 million historic copyright-free images on Flickr. (BBC News)
- Napa libraries closed on Aug. 25 to reshelve books after the earthquake. (Napa County Libary’s Facebook page)
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| Photo © Napa County Library (Aug. 2014) |
Worth Reading/Listening to:
- To Self-Publish and Perish: Buried Under 3.4 Million E-books. If you think there are a lot of ebooks on Amazon, you’re right – and it’s growing at a rate of about 1 book every 5 minutes, or over a million books per year. (claudenougat blog)
For Writers & Bloggers:
- Author Jim C. Hines on despair – feeling it rather than writing about it. (Guest post on the Magical Words blog)
- Best books on writing according to Sarah Armstrong of the Writing Courses blog.
- Can I Use That Picture? – an infographic to help bloggers and others determine whether it’s OK to use a copyrighted image. The infographic is too large and the print too small to read it here, but you can enlarge the original image (just click on it) or buy a poster. (The Visual Communication Guy)
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| © The Visual Communication Guy. Used with permission. |
Book & Movie Announcements:
- The Boxcar Children is now an animated film. It will have a limited theatrical release and is already available on DVD and streaming (rental) through Amazon, but is not yet on Netflix.
- Sony Pictures will film Dan Brown’s Inferno, with Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon and Ron Howard directing. (Deadline)
- Warner Bros.’ The Jungle Book has cast several big-name actors: Cate Blanchett, Christian Bale, and Benedict Cumberbatch have now signed on. Blanchett will voice Kaa, the python; Bale will voice Bagheera; and Cumberbatch will lend his voice talents to Shere Khan, the tiger. (What is it with Cumberbatch and Khan?!) Director Andy Serkis will play Baloo the bear. The script is by Callie Kloves (daughter of HP screenwriter Steve Kloves), and she’s working from the original stories. Note that this is a different version than the Disney live-action/CGI version which is also in the works. (Hollywood Reporter)
Really cool:
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| 3D “page” from Goodnight Moon – “a comb and a brush and a bowlful of mush” |
- 3D printed picture books for visually impaired children. A brilliant idea, and now it’s real — though not yet widely available. (colorado.edu . For more information, go to www.tactilepicturebooks.org )
www.tactilepicturebooks.org.#sthash.Tc4LTOVD.aDxxHXR2.dpufwww.tactilepicturebooks.org.#sthash.Tc4LTOVD.aDxxHXR2.dpuf
- A 3-D printed castle made of concrete – and big enough to walk into. (3Dprint.com)
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| 3D castle designed, printed, and assembled by Andrey Rudenko. Photo via 3Dprint.com |
Bookish Quotes:
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| Maurice Sendak poster |
That’s it for this week!
I’m always on the lookout for interesting articles, lists, and links for News & Notes, so please let me know if you see (or write!) anything that might be good for this feature. You can leave me a comment or send me an email — my address is on the About/Review Policy/Contact page.
Bea
3D printing just absolutley amazes me; it’s capabilities are remarkable.
Lark @ The Bookwyrm's Hoard
I agree! I think in 10 or 20 years, there will be personalized solutions for a lot of things. They already have 3D printed casts with holes in, so you can shower. Though it occurs to me that “printing” is really a misnomer; you’re manufacturing something layer by layer by extrusion, not applying ink or toner to create a visual microsurface.
Rita_h
Interesting about B & N hooking up with Samsung for that device–curious how that will be received by e-reading folks.
I love that castle! What a wild idea, that 3D printing. I’d seen it before on tv, but not for something of that size.
Thanks for the fun and informative news as usual.
Angela's Anxious Life
I missed my Sunday Post last week too. Busy with family. I didn’t realize banned book week was already coming. WOW! I always want to do something for it on my blog but never really do. Maybe this year will be the year!
Red Iza
That castle has been printed ?! It’s amazing ! I really need to see one of these printers.
Greg
You know, I would like to see a really good live action Boxcar children movie, and I think my kids would too if it was done well, but at least they’re doing an animated version. And Cate Blanchett as Kaa? I’ll bet she’ll do great with that! Hmm… sad to see the NAPA library picture, books should not be on the floor like that! LOL.