Book Culture

“New” J R R Tolkien Novel, “The Fall of Gondolin”, Is Coming Later This Year

10 April, 2018 // 5 Comments

Terry Pratchett may have avoided ghouls robbing his literary estate after his death, but other authors were nearly as lucky. Some authors (for example, Harper Lee) were still alive when the ghouls [Read More ...]

Why Do Publishers Still Issue Hardbacks, Given That They’re Not That Popular Anymore?

26 February, 2018 // 23 Comments

In its ongoing efforts to beat the "print books good, ebooks bad" drum, on Sunday the Guardian asked Philip Jones of The Bookseller why he thought print books were still being published. (Yes, this [Read More ...]

Customers Won’t Pay as Much for Digital Goods, Redux

3 January, 2018 // 17 Comments

Back before Christmas the Harvard Business Review published an article on recent research that showed that people valued physical objects for the act of possession more than for the use of said [Read More ...]

What’s This Fantasy Doing in My Science Fiction epic?

18 December, 2017 // 7 Comments

There is a hard and fast rule that science fiction has science and that fantasy has magic, and thus the two genres will never be one. That is the line that divides the genres, but as Noah Berlatsky [Read More ...]

The Book of My Enemy Has Been Remaindered

4 December, 2017 // 0 Comments

Editor's Note: The following poem was written by Clive James. I haven't been able to reach the author and secure permission for posting it here, so I will simply share the first of 4 stanzas and link [Read More ...]

Anti-SF Bias Leads to Poorer Reading Comprehension, Study Finds

23 November, 2017 // 10 Comments

Do you know how some look down on science fiction and other genre fiction as being less serious or literary? It turns out that they might not be seeing what's actually in front of them. New research [Read More ...]

Who or What Are You Reading Right Now?

1 November, 2017 // 22 Comments

Every so often I have posted an open question asking what people are reading on, but I don't think I have ever asked about the content you are reading. So, readers - what are you reading right now? [Read More ...]

You’ll Need to Burn This Experimental Edition of Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451” in Order to Read It

23 October, 2017 // 2 Comments

Someone has once again missed the point of Ray Bradbury's seminal work. Open Culture reports that a Dutch art college has created a new edition of Fahrenheit 451 that hes pages covered heat [Read More ...]

How to Rescue a Water-Damaged Book: A Short, Handy Primer (video)

20 October, 2017 // 4 Comments

We all know how to use the rice trick to recover a waterlogged gadget (hint: oatmeal works better), but have you ever had to revive a book from a watery demise? The Syracuse University [Read More ...]

What Are You Reading On?

12 October, 2017 // 51 Comments

This Thursday morning finds me sitting here, waiting for my Kindle to install the latest firmware update. I'm looking forward to the new options for sizes and boldness, but while I am waiting I [Read More ...]

People Are Weird About Books, and Attempts to “Improve” or “Fix” Books in a Web Browser Prove it

29 September, 2017 // 13 Comments

The first thing thing you should know about reading books in a web browser is that far more developers than users are excited about the idea of making a digital book look just like a print book. I [Read More ...]

Voting for the Fan Choice Dragon Awards Ends on 28 August

27 July, 2017 // 1 Comment

These awards have received almost no press attention, but did you know that the second-annual Dragon Awards are being voted on right now? Launched in part as a reaction to admissions that the Hugos [Read More ...]

Voting for the 2017 Hugo Awards Has Closed, and the Sad Puppies Were Nowhere to be Seen

20 July, 2017 // 17 Comments

News is by definition the reporting of recent events, but sometimes it is equally important to note when an event does not occur. On Sunday, the voting period for the 2017 Hugo Awards ended. [Read More ...]

Guest Post: As Harry Potter Turns Twenty, Let’s Focus on Reading Pleasure Rather Than Literary Merit

20 June, 2017 // 12 Comments

It’s 20 years on June 26 since the publication of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, the first in the seven-book series. The Philosopher’s Stone has sold more than 450 million copies and [Read More ...]

Indian City to Build “Reading Parks”

20 June, 2017 // 2 Comments

Activists in the city of Bhopal have found a new use for dormant city parks. According to the Times of India, the parks are going to be redeveloped into reading parks: A few pages to flip, a beverage [Read More ...]

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