On Reading Ahead, the blog of the National Book Foundation, Executive Director Harold Augenbraun offers us this nugget regarding the state of reading in this country.If literary reading is on the decline, one way to stem that decline is to create a holistic approach along a spectrum of age-appropriate activities and to allow flexibility, which the balkanized literary culture will most likely not be able to do because of varied cultural, political, and social ideologies that have very little to do with inculcating a love of reading. If we leave the creation of readers to ideologues—and I use that word...
What Barack is Reading
Barack Obama hits the tarmac in Bozeman, Montana with book in hand.The marketing folks at W.W. Norton where all over this one. I am not sure the New Times slideshow was finished before they blasted the blogwaves alerting us to this biblio treat.The book? Fareed Zakaria's new book The Post-American World published by W.W. Norton.The book begins in pure Barackian fashion -"This is a book not about the decline of America but rather the rise of everyone else."Zakaria is editor of Newsweek International and writes a regular column on foreign affairs for Newsweek. He will also be the host of...
The Legacy of Tom Phillips’ HUMUMENT
In 1970, artist Tom Phillips published the first edition of his now-classic altered book Humument with London's Tetrad Press. "A Treated Victorian Novel," Phillips himself has described the project as combining "medieval illumination, experimental poetry and non-linear narrative with the procedures of modern art." As seen in this gallery of images from the first edition or this slideshow of the fourth (Phillips continues to expand and revise the project), the results can be breathtaking. The book's first trade edition in 1980 established it as a cult fave and it remains in-print to this day. Indeed, it is probably the most...
‘The Writing’s On The Wall’ : Art Meets Language
SHIRIN NESHAT -Rebellious Silence (1994)Black and white RC print and ink, 27.9 x 35.6 cm. Courtesy Gladstone Gallery, New York.The current issue of ArtAsiaPacific features an in depth look at artists who employ text in their work.Articles include:-A great piece on contemporary calligraphy in China, "Square Words, Round Paradigms" by Eric Wear.-A look at Yoko Ono's embrace of online communities (Ono averages 200 new 'friends' on MySpace a day) by HG Masters.-Gregory Galligan's looks at Islamic text-based art in his piece, "Architecture in Script: From Without Boundaries to Archive Fever," and includes Shirin Neshat whose iconic work appears above.Also in...
The Book Divide
A colleague of mine recently received this feedback from an Amazon customer:2 out of 5 stars: "Three layers of wrapping for a book! This is expensiveand wasteful. Just stick it in an envelope and send it." Another illuminating example of the wide range of relationships that people have with books. There are those who cherish the book as an object and those that cherish the content and unfortunately, rarely the twain have met.