Judge eviscerates Internet Archive’s scanning and lending program
In an emphatic 47-page opinion, federal judge John G. Koeltl found the Internet Archive infringed the copyrights of four plaintiff publishers by scanning and lending their books under a legally contested practice known as...
National poll finds Americans support freedom to read
Iowa's Grinnell College and Seltzer & Co., a polling company in Des Moines, which partner to conduct a national poll each year on the attitudes of Americans towards politics and political figures, as well...
NBCC Awards announced including two inaugural prizes
The 2023 National Book Critics Circle Awards were presented on March 23 at the organization's first in-person ceremony since the pandemic began, once again held at the New School in New York City. The...
ALA reports shocking increase in attempted book bans in 2022
With book banning and legislative attacks on the freedom to read continuing to surge across the country, the American Library Association announced today that it tracked a stunning 1,269 "demands to censor library books...
Gunned down and burned by the Nazis: the shocking true story of Bambi
Bambi, the iconic fawn is this year celebrating a very significant birthday, it being a century since the German imprint Ullstein Verlag first published Bambi: A Life in the Woods. Written by Felix Salten,...
National Humanities Medals awarded to seven writers
Today, twelve writers, historians, educators and activists received their 2021 National Humanities Medals from President Biden at the White House, in conjunction with the twelve 2021 National Medals of Arts recipients. The awards were...
Ann Napolitano’s Hello Beautiful picked as Oprah’s 100th book
Ann Napolitano toiled in obscurity for years. Novels went unpublished; agents turned her down. She found recognition with "Dear Edward." Then came the call: "Hello Beautiful" was the 100th pick for what is arguably...
Nobel laureate Kenzaburo Oe, writer of poetic fiction, dies
Nobel literature laureate Kenzaburo Oe, whose darkly poetic novels were built from his childhood memories during Japan's postwar occupation and from being the parent of a disabled son, has died. He was 88.
Oe, who...
When handling rare books, experts say that bare, just-cleaned hands are best
People who handle rare books for a living are used to doing battle with a range of dastardly scourges, including red rot, beetles and thieves. But there is one foe that drives many of...
Cut the politics. Phonics is the best way to teach reading.
People learn to talk simply through listening — to our parents talking to us and to each other, to the TV talking to the ether, to strangers on the street. But that's not how...
