The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has released its latest report on the reading habits of our fellow Americans. The report titled "Reading on the Rise : A New Chapter in American Literacy" shows that "for the first time in over a quarter-century...literary reading has risen among adult Americans. After decades of declining trends, there has been a decisive and unambiguous increase "among virtually every group measured in this comprehensive nationalsurvey."Wow! At last some positive news for the book world. While no one can put a finger on exactly what has caused this reversal outgoing NEA chairman Dana Goia...
Beirut : World Book Capital City for 2009
Since 2001 The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has picked one city each year as the World Book Capital City.UNESCO works with three major branches of the global book industry, the International Publishers Association (IPA), the International Booksellers Federation (IBF) and the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), to determine the winners.This year the winner is Beirut, Lebanon.UNESCO has already chosen the World Book Capital for 2010. The winner is Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia.Here is an excerpt from a letter from Zoran Jankovic, the mayor of Ljubljana, that accompanied the city's winning submission:In pursuing...
The Rise of the Collectible Book
AbeBooks home page
Can the Resturants Save the Bookshops?
Two popular and successful Seattle restaurants have just opened up shop in two of the city's largest independent bookstores.At the venerable Elliott Bay Book Company Tamara Murphy of Brassa fame has taken over the cafe. Not only has the quality of the food gone through the roof but the entire space has been reworked bringing"There's a synergy between books and food"
Holiday Link Dump
The holidays are upon us, which means that in the midst of the usual Christmas craziness items I've wanted to blog about have been piling up in my news reader at an alarming rate. So in the interests of not falling further behind, my early gift to you is hours of bibliophilic browsing:First, David Hewson has an excellent series of posts detailing his experiences with the Sony Reader.And on a related note, The Kindle appears to be sold-out for the holidays, possibly in anticipation for Kindle 2.0The New Rochelle School District is cutting out a passage (LITERALLY!) of Girl Interupted:...