As in other countries, poetry sales rose by double-digit amounts last year in Northern Ireland, with the bulk of that purchasing coming from people under 34. Why? Let a poet explain. – BBC
Category: words
Book Banning Is Becoming A Prison Epidemic
It’s for security, officials say, as they ban books about coding and cybersecurity off of lists of books prisoners can receive. But some on the lists date back to the 1990s – and no one’s hacking into AOL anymore. – Vice
Books And Social Media Actually Do Mix
Surprising no one who has pr-oordered, ordered, put on reserve at the library, or flat-out bought books mentioned by friends and authors on Twitter or Instagram or Facebook, the consensus is that social media plus books equals interest … and often, sales. – The Atlantic
Oxford Elects Its First Female Professor Of Poetry
So progressive! “After three centuries of Broets (I’m not sorry) hogging the big chair, Oxford University—arguably the world’s most venerable institution of higher education—has elected its first female Professor of Poetry in the form of Alice Oswald, a beloved and distinguished bard who has previously won the Ted Hughes prize, the Costa award, the Griffin prize, and the TS Eliot prize.” – LitHub
Why Should We Read Beowulf In The Bathtub?
This is actually advice for parents: “We don’t read Ramona, or Junie B. Jones, or The Wild Robot in the bathtub. Those are bedtime books. Bath time is for epics, myths, and classics.” Clearly. – NPR
How To Avoid A Sexist Tax On Tampons? Sell Them In Books
In order to avoid the unreasonably high VAT on tampons in many European countries, a startup in Germany (where the tax is 19%!) has started packaging 15 tampons with a 46-page booklet about menstruation as a book (taxed at 7%). The Tampon Book’s first printing sold out in a day, the second within a week. What’s more, it just won the Grand Prix in PR at the Cannes Lions festival for advertising professionals. – Melville House
The Library Tucked In A Pakistani Arms Market
“This tribal district, located about 85 miles west of Islamabad, is best known for its sprawling weapons bazaar. … A local book lover, Raj Muhammad, hopes it becomes known as the home of the Darra Adam Khel Library.” Even the gun merchants have noticed; one of them says the library is “the best thing that happened recently for the people here.” – The New York Times
Warning: US Tariffs On Chinese Book Publishing Would Be Catastrophic For US Publishers
“The US publishing industry invests in literature, children’s books, educational materials, religious and historical texts, Bibles, scientific expression, and numerous other works of fiction and nonfiction that support and celebrate American voices but are printed in China. There are no viable alternatives either inside or outside of the United States at this time, meaning that the impact of the tariffs—if applied to books—would be swift and devastating to both American publishers and the important works they disseminate.” – Publishing Perspectives
Will Audio Books And Podcasts Eventually Merge Into One?
Will these different digital audio worlds continue to exist separate, parallel, and mostly unintrusive of each other? Or will they, over the medium to long term, end up colliding in direct competition? – NiemanLab (3rd item)
The Printing Press Was Invented Centuries Before Gutenberg
“Movable type was an 11th-century Chinese invention, refined in Korea in 1230, before meeting conditions in Europe that would allow it to flourish — in Europe, in Gutenberg’s time.” – Literary Hub