At The New York Times, Michiko Kakutani reports on how reading and writing helped President Obama to “slow down and get perspective” from novelists, memoirists, and historical figures during the eight years of his presidency.
reading
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
A Conversation in the Margins
What they don’t tell you about death—or what you don’t really understand until it happens close to you—is how permanent it is. In the months afterward I kept thinking to myself, all right, I get it. This is too painful. Let’s just take a little break from the loss. Let’s have a weekend off. A […]
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Profiles & Interviews, Story
You Can Do Anything if You Just Do it Slowly: An Interview with Lauren Groff
Lauren Groff on not knowing what you’re doing, the thrill of the mess, and using all your senses to find a way in to the story.
Posted inBlog Post, Nonfiction
Jerry Falwell, Judith Krug, and the Origins of ‘Banned Books Week’
America, 1981: Ronald Reagan was sworn in as president, MTV aired its first video, and the culture wars were on. That January, the Rev. Jerry Falwell—a televangelist-turned-political-kingmaker who essentially invented the religious right as we know it today—had sent a massive direct mailing to his Moral Majority constituency, urging readers to examine their school libraries […]
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Story
Loving Books in a Dark Age
In the “dark ages” of Europe, people began reading silently to themselves, and a love of books and learning took hold, pioneered by Bede.
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction
Loving Books in a Dark Age
In the “dark ages” of Europe, people began reading silently to themselves, and a love of books and learning took hold, pioneered by Bede.
Posted inNonfiction, Quote Posts, Reading List
The Art and Business of Book Covers
Here are pieces I’ve enjoyed, new and old, about the art and business of book cover design.
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
The Art and Business of Book Covers
Here are pieces I’ve enjoyed, new and old, about the art and business of book cover design.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
How Young Adult Literature Won Over Librarians
Though young adult literature has arguably existed since at least Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House series, which was published in the 1930s, teachers and librarians were slow to accept books for teenagers as a genre. “Today, many librarians are acting like frightened ostriches,” Mary Kingsbury complained in 1971. Afraid of parental criticism and the threat of concerned administrators, she […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Fiction and Revolution
At the time, the stories we read seemed to me a means to an end, grueling exercises for the tender muscles of my developing Arabic. Only more recently have I wondered what it might feel like to read them as someone living under the Assad regime. A story, at its best, can make us feel less […]