Books news

June 06, 2015

Judge eviscerates Internet Archive's scanning and lending program

In an emphatic 47-page opinion, federal judge John G. Koeltl found the Internet Archive infringed the copyrights of four plaintiff publishers by scanning and lending their books under a legally contested practice known as CDL (controlled digital lending). And after three years of contentious legal...

National poll finds Americans support freedom to read

Iowa's Grinnell College and Seltzer & Co., a polling company in Des Moines, which partner to conduct a national poll each year on the attitudes of Americans towards politics and political figures, as well as hot-button cultural issues, released their latest data Wednesday. The findings...

NBCC Awards announced including two inaugural prizes

The 2023 National Book Critics Circle Awards were presented on March 23 at the organization's first in-person ceremony since the pandemic began, once again held at the New School in New York City. The National Book Critics Circle was founded in 1974 and comprises of more than 600 working...

ALA reports shocking increase in attempted book bans in 2022

With book banning and legislative attacks on the freedom to read continuing to surge across the country, the American Library Association announced today that it tracked a stunning 1,269 "demands to censor library books and resources" in 2022, the highest number of attempted book bans...

Gunned down and burned by the Nazis: the shocking true story of Bambi

Bambi, the iconic fawn is this year celebrating a very significant birthday, it being a century since the German imprint Ullstein Verlag first published Bambi: A Life in the Woods. Written by Felix Salten, an Austro-Hungarian, the coming-of-age novel would go on to be banned by the Nazis before...

National Humanities Medals awarded to seven writers

Today, twelve writers, historians, educators and activists received their 2021 National Humanities Medals from President Biden at the White House, in conjunction with the twelve 2021 National Medals of Arts recipients. The awards were delayed to the pandemic. Writers awarded include Richard...

Ann Napolitano's <i>Hello Beautiful</i> picked as Oprah's 100th book

Ann Napolitano toiled in obscurity for years. Novels went unpublished; agents turned her down. She found recognition with "Dear Edward." Then came the call: "Hello Beautiful" was the 100th pick for what is arguably the most influential book club in the world. Maybe it was fate,...

Nobel laureate Kenzaburo Oe, writer of poetic fiction, dies

Nobel literature laureate Kenzaburo Oe, whose darkly poetic novels were built from his childhood memories during Japan's postwar occupation and from being the parent of a disabled son, has died. He was 88. Oe, who was also an outspoken anti-nuclear and peace activist, died on March 3, his...

When handling rare books, experts say that bare, just-cleaned hands are best

People who handle rare books for a living are used to doing battle with a range of dastardly scourges, including red rot, beetles and thieves. But there is one foe that drives many of them particularly crazy: the general public's unshakable — and often vehemently expressed — belief that old...

Cut the politics. Phonics is the best way to teach reading.

People learn to talk simply through listening — to our parents talking to us and to each other, to the TV talking to the ether, to strangers on the street. But that's not how people learn to read. People need to be taught to read. And the trouble is, educators, parents and politicians...

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