Illustration from Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak Lovers of children’s books mourn the death of bestselling children’s author and illustrator Maurice Sendak, who died today in Danbury, Connecticut, at the age of 83. Sendak is best known for Where the Wild Things Are, the story of young… Read more »
Now that my work project is completed, I’ve had a little time to get onto Pottermore and play. My overall reaction is one of mild disappointment oddly coupled with mild enthusiasm. The additional material is interesting (for instance, the backstories of Vernon and Petunia Dursley and Prof. McGonagall, respectively), and… Read more »
This week I came across two wonderful posts about indexing (which happens to be my profession.) If you’ve ever wondered why indexes need to be prepared by human beings instead of computers, Carol Saller at The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Lingua Franca blog explains (“Book Indexing, Part 1: Is a… Read more »
Malice Domestic, the convention for mystery authors and readers held annually in Bethesda, Maryland, has announced the dates and guest list for the 2013 conference. This is the convention which chooses the prestigious Agatha awards. The convention will be May 3-5, 2013. Laurie R. King will be the Guest of… Read more »
Kate Coombs of the Book Aunt blog has posted a wonderful in memoriam review of Diana Wynn Jones’ works today. Wynn Jones, who died last year of cancer, is perhaps best known as the author of Howl’s Moving Castle, but she wrote a number of other delightful and quirkily humorous… Read more »
There are lots of ways to help young people develop a love of books. But the most important begins at home, by showing children the fun and the magic of books. If you have a child or young adult in your household or family, read to them! Read every day… Read more »
Isn’t this a great poster? It was designed by Mike Anderick for Burning Through Pages, a Denver-based nonprofit organization dedicated to getting kids reading and talking about books. The poster has gone viral on Facebook. You may have seen it; I’ve shared it myself. Burning Through Pages gives young readers… Read more »
I’ve been pretty busy this week, but I did come across a few interesting articles other than the Tor/Forge announcement. “Retail DRM is an Apple. Library DRM is an Orange.” (Michael Kelley, The Digital Shift) (The apple in question is the fruit, not the hardware/media company.) “There’s a $3 Sweet… Read more »
The big news of the week is that Tor/Forge will drop DRM from its ebooks by early July. Tor UK plans to do to the same. (Tor/Forge is a subsidiary of MacMillan, which is still involved in the DOJ price-fixing lawsuit.) Eliminating DRM has been proposed as one way that… Read more »
Today is the 448th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth. Even if you’ve never read his plays or sonnets, you owe Shakespeare quite a lot. According to scholars, he may have contributed as many as 1700 new words to the English language — words like abstemious, lackluster, and zany. He invented phrases… Read more »
