On the heels of a New Mexico school district banning Neverwhere because a mother considered it “R-rated,” Neil Gaiman delivered a lecture for the Reading Agency about the importance of libraries and reading for children. “It’s tosh. It’s snobbery and it’s foolishness. There are no bad authors for children, that children like and want to read and seek out, because every child is different,” he said about banning books.
The “Bad” Author Myth
Agoraphobia
As part of his research for his recent treatise on office life, Cubed, n + 1 editor Nikil Saval looked back on his own years in an open office. In an interview with Sara Scribner, he talks about his growing awareness that it wasn’t good for his health: “It was sociable in some good senses, but also mostly not a pleasant place to be.”
●
●
Tom Bissell Turns Pop
How writer Tom Bissell has pulled up some literary roots (think The Father of All Things) to begin staking out territory in pop culture (Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter).
●
●
Flimflam
Here’s a simple poll idea we’re amazed we hadn’t thought of before: asking famous writers to pick their favorite words. In The Guardian, Hilary Mantel, Tessa Hadley and others (including Year in Reading alum Eimear McBride) choose their picks for an exceedingly odd vocabulary list.
●
●
The End of the Rainbow
I’m feeling surprisingly broken up about this: Reading Rainbow comes to the end of its 26-year run on Friday.
One comment:
Add Your Comment: Cancel reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Rolling Readers
“They don’t want to get off the bus because they wanted to keep listening.” A Texas library system has outfitted a handful of public school buses with wi-fi access and digital audiobooks, reports The Digital Reader. Pair with this celebration of perambulatory reading.
●
●
Gone in the Dark
“And so the book we have available to us is not the one she intended for us to see — and to those who knew her only as the private spouse of a public figure, Michelle McNamara emerges from these pages as much of a mystery as the Golden State Killer does, gone in the dark.” In Vulture, a profile of the late true crime writer Michelle McNamara whose book, I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer, was published last week. From our archives: an essay on why one writer reads true crime novels.
Reading OD
Caution: Too much reading can lead to retinal tears. At The New York Times, Charles McGrath recounts the perils of being a National Book Award judge and having to read 407 books in just four months.
●
●
As a public school librarian in the states, I am in the unusual position of having to convince educators of the importance of reading. Oh for a Reading Agency here!