Barnes and Noble‘s revenue is down 4% since October 29th, and they have a few ideas as to why. CEO Leonardo Riggio posits that the season’s ‘bitter election’ had people so glued to their TV’s for debates and stats, that they forgot to read! His proof, is a noticeable decrease in sales during prime-time viewing hours. The company also speculates that The Cursed Child‘s waning popularity and success, might have had an impact. Well now that the country has made up its mind, let’s get back to the one thing that can’t hurt a fly: reading! Featured image courtesy of greenspun
Hong Kong and larger China are still recoiling from the massive blow dealt to the publishing industry following the kidnapping of five major publishers last year. This summer, the Hong Kong book fair sent a strong message to the government by selling politically radical and sensitive material. It was a decisive stand for free speech, but the publishing industry is far from recovered. Mei Fong has found herself up against a wall of a resistance in attempting to have her Pulitzer Prize winning book, One Child: The Story of China’s Most Radical Experiment, distributed throughout China and Taiwan. After many rejections from Chinese and Taiwanese publishers, …
Zadie Smith is one of our most valuable luminaries, and we’re always fascinated to hear her incisive analyses of racial identity and class. She’s mid-book tour right now, promoting her fifth novel, Swing Time. She recently spoke with NPR, and of course the interview was highly quotable. Here’s the highlight reel. The impermanence of Stereotypes: Certainly the kind of groupings and stereotypes are so subject to history — that really interests me. For instance, if you’d asked the kids in my school when they were all about 12 what one could expect of, say, a Pakistani-Muslim boy in our class, our go-to image of that young …
One of the more fascinating things about literature is that it only exists in a reader’s mind. Language gets refracted through consciousness, and leaves an entirely different impression from one reader to the next. If you talk to your reader friends, you’ll learn that they read in different ways, and for different reasons. We’d like to know how you guys read, so we made a poll! If you don’t see yourself represented in any of these answers, leave a comment! Featured image courtesy of Pinterest
Karl Over Knausgaard, the author of the worldwide bestselling series, My Struggle, recently talked with Louisiana Channel and shared some insightful commentary on why literature is most useful for developing new and different opinions. Coming off the heels of a historically controversial election here in the states, it seems people people are rearing to disagree with one another at every opportunity. If you’re getting tired of bitter rhetoric and debate, Knausgaard makes the case that literature is a safe space to engage with new ideas. When we look at something, films, pictures or whatever, they are conveyed and we form an …
