Master Cpl. Gary Tabor of the Wilmington, Delaware police department had been in plenty of homes during his time in the major crimes unit and he realized there was at least one common denominator - the lack of books in the home. Then he heard about the correlation between books in the home and higher graduation rates from high school and the light went on and "The Book 'Em Cops and Kids Literacy Initiative" was born. Since the program began almost 6,000 books have been distributed for free and for many of the kids it is the first book they ever...
Nadine Gordimer: Icon
As part of his series 21 ICONS South Africa filmmaker and photographer Adrian Steirn pays homage to Nobel prize-winning author Nadine Gordimer. She is the first artist to be included in the series and his "Alice in Wonderland" portrait celebrates her "profound love of books and writing' by having her sit atop life-size copies of some of her books and if you ever wondered where Gordimer stands on going to school to learn how to write: “Read and write. Don’t go to creative writing class. You can’t be taught to write. You can be taught to be a good journalist, but you cannot...
Burning the grass where the Nazi’s burned the books
“Where they burn books, they will also ultimately burn people” - Heinrich Heine It's time for our annual look at one of the greatest examples of biblioclasm in history, the Nazi book burnings. On May 10, 1933 over 30 burnings took place across Germany and upwards of 25,000 "un-German" books were torched. "You are doing the right thing at this midnight hour—to consign to the flames the unclean spirit of the past. This is a great, powerful, and symbolic act. . . . Out of these ashes the phoenix of a new age will arise. . . . Oh Century! Oh Science!...
Books Win! NYPL drops makeover, Freakonomics on Libraries
Books Win! Books Win! In what will be remembered as one of the biggest victories for the printed book in the digital age. The New York Public Library has reversed direction on the proposed renovation of its mothership, the Bryant Park branch in mid-town Manhattan. The New York Times called it "a striking about-face" and added: "Library officials had heralded the renovation as part of a significant effort to rethink the flagship building in preparation for a digital future in which public access to computers would become as important as books." The plan was suspect from the beginning. "A Bloomberg-era scheme...
Book focus in the sculpture of Philip Jackson
Reading Chaucer. Bronze, edition of 8. Here's a sampling of British sculptor Philip Jackson's book-tinged work. Jackson covers the spectrum, from the realism of the Founders Sculpture below to the abstract aspects of the others, with each piece exuding a penetrating focus on a book. Guided Missal. Edition of 5. Chanting Cimarosa Edition of 8. Founder's Sculpture. Commissioned in 2005. Bronze, life size