Jorge Tetl Argueta is himself a distinguished author of children’s books, but he has recently sought a new, more direct method of delivering stories into kids’ hands. This past week, Jorge flew out to his hometown of San Salvador, El Salvador, to attend the 7th Annual Manyula International Children’s Poetry Festival, held at the Biblioteca Nacional. Image courtesy of NBC This year, Jorge is there to mark the opening of the La Biblioteca de los Sueños (Library of Dreams): a safe space where children can read, perform, and explore their creative interests, far away from the gang violence that plagues their neighborhood …
Joan Didion has a new book coming out on March 7, 2017. It’s called South and West, and it will be comprised of two ‘extended excerpts’ from Didion’s illusive notebooks, which have been frequently referenced in her previous books. According to Penguin Random House, the excerpts will include: ‘overheard dialogue, observations, interviews, drafts of essays and articles’ as well as an account of a ‘road trip she took with her husband, John Gregory Dunne, in June 1970, through Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama’ and a segment called the “California Notes”. This new book will no doubt see Didion flexing her journalistic muscles, as she …
This past Friday, Leonard Cohen died in his sleep in his Montreal home, just weeks after the release of his 14th and final studio album, You Want It Darker. Leonard recorded the songs with his son Adam; himself a distinguished songwriter, despite the severity of his cancer, and excruciating back pain. The final result is being praised by critics as some of his best work in a career spanning sixty years. To pay homage to the Canadian master, we’ve assembled some iconic pictures from his incredible life. Featured image courtesy of mediacache Leonard’s yearbook photo from McGill, where he completed his undergraduate studies, and was …
Listen up Tolkienites! This one might just be the biopic you’ve been waiting for! Protagonist Pictures has just announced the coming of a brand new documentary called Middle Earth, which will detail the early life of the legendary British fantasy author, J R.R. Tolkien. The movie will also follow Tolkien’s time at Oxford, his relationship with Edith Bratt, and perhaps most importantly, his time serving in WWI, which served as his primary inspiration for writing The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. So far, screenwriter Angus Fletcher has written the script, and Downton Abbey director, James Strong, is set …
It’s not a question most of us have considered, but hey, that’s what the scientists are for, right? Brian Kenji Iwana and Seiichi Uchida are neuro-scientists at Kyushu University in Japan, who set out to answer this exact question. Well, a version of it, at least. The goal was to test an AI’s ability to match a book cover with 20 given genres. To do so, the pair developped a highly sophisticated neural network that would perform this task. So we still don’t know what a robot’s favorite Harry Potter book is, but hey, we’ll get there. The results were surprising. The …
