In 2006, the National Library of Norway enacted an ambitious plan to digitize every book in its holdings by 2020. The idea is that all of the content (even works under copyright) will be accessible to people logging into the system with a Norwegian IP address.
Norway to Digitize Its Entire Library
“I think the role of the critic will remain strong even if the media landscape is constantly changing.”
Alex Ross, New Yorker music columnist and author of Listen To This, is interviewed for The Browser.
It’s not plagiarism… it’s angloglobalisation?
On the London Review of Books blog, Kaya Genç makes the case that the similarities between the successful Turkish author Elif Şafak’s work and Zadie Smith’s books is a fact of Turkey’s shifting cultural values rather than plagiarism: “Istanbul, the city Shafak returned to after writing her book in London and the setting for many of her earlier novels, resembles London more and more.” For a bit of context, here’s Lydia Kiesling’s rundown of the initial scandal.
Jonathan Franzen New Yorker Article
Jonathan Franzen writes of Robinson Crusoe, solitude, and David Foster Wallace in his new article from The New Yorker – but you’ll have to like their Facebook page to read it.
The Golden Ticket
“As a rare book collector and head of the English department at Ayer-Shirley Regional High School, Eleanor Capasso said that being sent what she believes could be a first edition of a Jane Austen novel felt a lot like winning the golden ticket to visit Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.” Find out more about how a teacher received a two-hundred-year-old copy of Persuasion. If you’re looking for rare books, our guide has got you covered.
Someone’s Gotta Do It
If you’ve ever wondered how all those celebrity chefs can churn out so many cookbooks year after year, you should check out Julia Moskin’s confessions from a former “food ghost.”