Block That Adjective! Alexander McCall Smith on writing over @ WSJ.com
Yesterday, Starbucks rolled out a new initiative to get bodies in store and seats in chairs. Partnering with a couple of publishers, newspapers, and other media (iTunes and Apple, it seems, will partner with anyone), they’ve killed the pay wall for WSJ.com and The New York Times. A long time yet cheap devotee of WSJ.com’s Books section, this morning I settled down over a cup of not-so-great coffee to have a cozy read. And here’s what I found: an excellent article by Alexander...
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 MoreDystopias: YA Fad, or Here to Stay?
Dystopic fiction is nothing new. According the Oxford English Dictionary, the word was first used (created of his own free will) by philosopher John Stuart Mill in 1868. Mill used the word in a speech to the British House of Commons, denouncing the Irish Land Act (“What is commonly called Utopian is something too good to be practicable; but what they appear to favour is too bad to be practicable.”). Since then, dystopias have become a staple in fiction, cycling through literary,...
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