Image via Pasadena Museum of History "My tunes and numbers are here. They have filled my years, the years when I refused to die. And in order to do that I wrote, I wrote, I wrote, at noon or 3:00 am. So as not to be dead." (from The Illustrated Man) Credited…
Since I was a very small child, the absolute best thing about summer was the extra time to read. My mother, fed up with me being in the house, would throw me outside to "get some sunshine." So I took my book outside, sat on the porch, and waited to be let in. Like a…
Last week's post spoke a bit about the digital revolution taking place in book publishing. Continuing on that theme, here's an interesting discovery that--in a roundabout fashion--would actually serve to preserve the legacy of printed books: Imagine being able to hold an out-of-print, highly coveted work in your hands--say, Lewis Carroll's original manuscript for Alice…
Y U NO see this book is HORRIBLE? I just asked my group of friends on Facebook to tell me what book they HATE that everyone else seems to love. Well, it has been roughly one hour and we are up to EIGHTY-TWO comments. Now, to look at the list you would think this was NOT…
Read More "No Accounting for Taste: A Bunch of Over-Educated People Confess Book Hatred"
As a bit of a purist on the book front, it's been a rocky road to accept anything not printed on paper and bound by a soft cover. When e-readers first became popular, I was there, standing on the proverbial soapbox, lamenting to disinterested friends the decline of bookshelves, the end of book publishing. I…
Read More "The Next Generation Digital Book: A Whole New Way to Read"
The year before he died, acclaimed philosopher Bertrand Russell published the final volume in his series of autobiographies. Spanning twenty-five years of his life, from 1944 to 1969, this final chapter might be Lord Russell's most intimate. Brutally honest, and often humorous, he writes about everything from his religious self-questioning to his second imprisonment for…
This past weekend thousands—yes, thousands—of literature lovers descended upon the University of Southern California’s campus to celebrate 2012’s LA Times Festival of Books. In its second year at the USC location, the event proves that Los Angeles isn’t the pariah of the book world that many would make it out to be. In fact, the…
Read More "Fantasy Books for a Fantasy Land: LA Times Festival of Books Highlights"
The three works that lost out on this year’s Pulitzer Fiction Prize: the dazzling debut Swamplandia! By Karen Russell; posthumously published The Pale King by David Foster Wallace; and noteworthy novella Train Dreams by Denis Johnson. A rare occurrence in Pulitzer history took place this week, with the panel electing not to award…
Read More "Close, But No Pulitzer: How Three Novels Lost Out on This Year’s Fiction Prize"
