Thank You Come Again (at the-NRI.com)
Apu Nahasapeemapetilon is a legend of Indian cinema. Sort of. Over the past twenty-one years, several Simpsons characters have made their way into the zeitgeist–several of whom are minority characters. But rather than being vilified, Apu has been claimed, somewhat lovingly, by Indian convenience store owners everywhere. How do I know? In December of 1989, the year The Simpsons hit the small screen, my family packed up our lives and moved north, to own and operate a Food Store. Read...
Read MorePenguin & the iPad: Taking Books to the Next Level, or Leaving Them in the Dust?
Apple’s latest gadget, the iPad, hits shelves this weekend. There’s been a lot of chatter on the interwebs and in the publishing world about how the shiny new tech may change the way we think of books. Earlier this year, Penguin CEO John Makinson debuted a concept video demonstrating some of the ways the house is planning on tapping the potential of Apple’s new iPad. With interfaces less like a book and more like an iPhone app, it’s clear the company is taking this new platform...
Read MoreTeam Book-Book vs. Team E-Book: reading deeper, experiencing less?
We love them, we hate them, we’re frightened of them. Some think they’ll kill the book. Others think they’ll save it. Team E-Book & Team Book-Book may regularly clash, but I think one thing is clear: e-books aren’t going away anytime soon. Lately, I’ve been reading several books at once–Shades of Grey (Jasper Fforde; my latest review title) and Dreamsongs II (George R.R. Martin) in print, The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins) and The Thief (Megan Whalen Turner) on my Kindle....
Read MoreYA Fiction: What is Cyberpunk and Why do I Care?
Dystopias may be the hot YA trend right now, but cyberpunk (and its bosom buddy, steampunk) is on the rise. In fact, you may have read some YA cyberpunk without even realizing it–books with a high level of technobabble but a low standard of living, like The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins), Kaimira: Sky Village (Nigel Ashland, Monk Ashland), The Softwire Series (P.J. Haarsma), and Little Brother (Cory Doctorow). What is Cyberpunk? There’s a lot of debate over when exactly cyberpunk...
Read MorePenguin & the iPad: Taking Books to the Next Level, or Leaving Them in the Dust?
Earlier this week, Penguin CEO John Makinson debuted a concept video demonstrating some of the ways the house is planning on tapping the potential of Apple’s new iPad. With interfaces less like a book and more like an iPhone app, it’s clear the company is taking this new platform seriously. John Makinson, from PaidContentUK: We will be embedding audio, video and streaming in to everything we do. The .epub format, which is the standard for ebooks at the present, is designed to support...
Read MoreZahra’s Paradise: Helping Teens Relate to Everyday Iranians?
Regularly updated webcomics with over-arcing storylines have been popular for years. Jorge Cham’s Ph.D was such a hit with the geek set (my grad student husband included) that he’s successfully self-published four collections. Penny Arcade, brain child of “Gabe” and “Tycho” has become review central for all things video game, and hosts an annual conference (PAX). But where Ph.D and Penny Arcade are inspired by real life, Zahra’s Paradise is real life. Amir is a human rights...
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