Oscar’s Reading List: Adaptations Dominate Nominees – Shelf Awareness
Six of the nine best picture nominations for this year’s Academy Awards, which will be presented February 26, are based on books, comprising an impressive reading list in Oscar’s major categories.
Check it out! Read the summaries of the adaptations, such as the author of the book and what the adaptation is nominated for. A note is left at the end, regarding the Harry Potter snub.
Sourcebooks Gives ‘Embrace’ a Big Marketing Push – Publisher’s Weekly – Sally Lodge
In a world where angels seek vengeance and humans are warriors, a teen must choose her destiny in Embrace, the launch title of a fantasy series by debut author Jessica Shirvington. Due in March from Sourcebooks Fire, the novel is supported by a $200,000 marketing budget, the largest the publisher has ever allocated for a young adult book. Sourcebooks doubled the size of the initial marketing campaign due to the enthusiastic reaction to its 4,000-copy ARC mailing to booksellers, librarians, teachers, and book media, a response that Chris Bauerle, director of sales and marketing, describes as “a tidal wave.” What is it about the novel that triggered the early buzz?
Read on to find out why! Normally I would never pick up a paranormal book with a cover like this – seems too stereotypical teeny-bopper – but the summaries and reviews are absolutely stunning.
TOC 2012: Children’s Books Must Exist in Digital and Print – Publisher’s Weekly – Gabe Habash
The “What Works Well Where? Considering Books for Children in Different Formats” session at TOC 2012 stressed the necessary coexistence of digital and traditional books for children, an opinion put forth by Junko Yokota, director of the Center for Teaching Through Children’s Books.
I couldn’t agree more! There are some aspects of a print book that are necessary for infants and children in order to adapt to the environment and to learn! In this case, there are things technology cannot touch.
The Beauty of the Printed Book – New York Times – Alice Rawsthorn
Anyone who wishes to be reminded of quite how beguiling old-fashioned books can be should visit “The Printed Book: A Visual History,” an exhibition running through May 13 at the Special Collections department of the University of Amsterdam. Drawn from the university’s book collection, which is among the world’s finest, the exhibition traces the evolution of book design through some of the most compellingly designed books of the last 500 years.
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Even the bibliophiles at Steidl expect e-books to continue to grow, largely at the expense of printed books. For starters, they are incredibly convenient. Just think of the hundreds of e-books you can pack on to a single digital device. They are environmentally responsible: saving trees from being felled to produce paper, and fossil fuel from being burned to transport boxes of books. Interactive books can also dazzle their readers with sound, film clips, animations and data visualizations as well as words and images. And if their readers are puzzled by a word or factual reference, they can check it on the Internet within seconds.
Yet so far, the design of e-books has been disappointing. Most of them look suspiciously as though their publishers have simply shunted their contents from print on to the screen. But some of the newer titles are more promising, largely because their designers have explored the technical and aesthetic possibilities of the new media.
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Yet there is still something very special about an adroitly designed printed book, perhaps because it is so simple and devoid of technological trickery.
Running in the Family by Michael Ondaatje 
In the late 1970s Ondaatje returned to his native island of Sri Lanka. As he records his journey through the drug-like heat and intoxicating fragrances of that “pendant off the ear of India, ” Ondaatje simultaneously retraces the baroque mythology of his Dutch-Ceylonese family. An inspired travel narrative and family memoir by an exceptional writer.
Another piece that I was required to read for my advanced nonfiction writing class. It was very different from the others (Maya Angelou and Geoffrey Wolff) in topic, writing style, and flow.
Running in the Family was difficult to read and dive into, at first. The writing style is disjointed and the timeline of the narrative jumbles and hops around. Within each section of chapters, the paragraph could begin with a story about the narrator’s grandmother, and end with paddies and riding on trains. However, after reading for a few hours and sinking into the rhythm of the text, I began to notice a pattern to the prose, poetry, dialogue, and photographs.
In order to me to understand this memoir, I pretended the narrator was a friend of mine, sharing a scrapbook of his family and telling stories about each photograph. Beautiful prose would describe the landscape of Sri Lanka, then memories of a family member and their adventures in Sri Lanka would spark, and from those stories a narrative about an adventure in England would branch. When I approached the memoir in this fashion, it was much easier to follow and discover the links from one family member to the next – and finally to the story of the narrator’s mother and father.
Another aspect of this memoir that is worth noting: while Wolff and Angelou repeatedly reminded the readers of their cultural background, their race, their history, Ondaatje’s identity was mixed. This colonial interpretation was so intricately woven that his own racial and cultural identity was vague. I understood that he was Dutch, but there were so many English, Canadian, and American ties within the Sri Lanka life that understanding Ondaatje’s identity and the identity of his family members became blurred. The jury’s still out figuring out if I liked that or not.
It was a good read, a bit difficult, but I do not think I’ll pick this book up again. And for that, I give it:
Rating: ★★ of 5
Goodreads: 3.88 of 5
Fair Trade: Random House Will Raise Library E-book Prices, But Commits to E-Book Lending – Publisher’s Weekly – Andrew Albanese
Never has a price increase been such good news for libraries. At a meeting with ALA leaders this week in New York, Random House officials said the “terms of sale” for Random House e-books to libraries will change, with a price increase coming. But the publisher reiterated its commitment to library e-book lending, saying they would continue to enable e-book lending of their entire list for both adult and children’s titles, backlist and frontlist, without restriction.
Definitely a fair trade. Continuing on from the article, RH is trying to have all parties benefit: the authors, the readers, the libraries, the publishers. Seems like a good deal for such a touchy subject.
The Greatest Books of All Time, as Voted by 125 Famous Authors – The Atlantic – Maria Popova
The requirements, or setting, for the list:
“If you’re putting together a list of ‘the greatest books,’ you’ll want to do two things: (1) out of kindness, avoid anyone working on a novel; and (2) decide what the word ‘great’ means. The first part is easy, but how about the second? A short list of possible definitions of ‘greatness’ might look like this:
1. ‘Great’ means ‘books that have been greatest for me.’
2. ‘Great’ means ‘books that would be considered great by the most people over time.’
3. ‘Great’ has nothing to do with you or me—or people at all. It involves transcendental concepts like God or the Sublime.
4. ‘Great’? I like Tom Clancy. “
Some of the books that make it include
Several categories too!!! This was really neat. Check it out!
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou 
A phenomenal #1 bestseller that has appeared on the New York Times bestseller list for nearly three years, this memoir traces Maya Angelou’s childhood in a small, rural community during the 1930s. Filled with images and recollections that point to the dignity and courage of black men and women, Angelou paints a sometimes disquieting, but always affecting picture of the people—and the times—that touched her life.
I had to read this for my advanced nonfiction writing course, and my peers were surprised when I said I had not read it before. Apparently it’s assigned a lot in high school English classes. My high school, though extremely academic and well-educated, was a bit biased and stuck underneath a bubble. It’s a predominately white, rich community, and in no way intended to create a curriculum that was – by not having black literature – racist. What wasn’t there or didn’t happen in this community, wasn’t or wouldn’t be acknowledged. I didn’t realize how sheltered it was until I came to college.
That said, all I knew about this memoir was that the narrator was raped as a young girl. I went into the text feeling a sense of dread, as well as a bit of “gosh, another writer rambling about all her troubles, that’s so new” attitude. I was pleasantly surprised instead!
Angelou wrote this piece simply, carefully, and entertainingly, while incorporating huge ideas and deep questions. A range of topics within a chapter would include the use of language, the complexities of family and familial love, race, the boundaries of race, sexuality, gender, and social interactions. My favorite parts of this memoir were moments when the narrator struggled between a love for reading – literature by white people, she’d always point out – and a desperation for reality – such as the power struggles between men and women, whites and blacks, children and adults.
Despite all its merits, I do not think I will pick this up again. I enjoyed it for the sake of its academic purposes, and I can easily understand why high school teachers put this on reading lists for students. My general distaste for reading nonfiction is showing.
Rating: ★★ of 5
GoodReads: 3.96 of 5
Why to Read Dickens Now (Or Watch Him on TV) – TIME Entertainment – Radhika Jones
When Charles Dickens began writing his first novel—in 1836, the year before Victoria took the throne—the literacy rate in England was less than 50 percent. By the end of her reign, in 1901, it was 97 percent. More than any writer of the time, Dickens helped close that gap. He did it by publishing stories that people desperately wanted to read and creating a market for thousands of other writers to do the same.
It’s only fitting that so many of Dickens’ novels, which I’ve been reading and rereading in advance of his Feb. 7 bicentenary, involve plots or subplots or scenes that pivot on learning and literacy.
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Nobody writes like Dickens anymore. There are authors who write as well or better, but they do it differently. Tastes change, and a truly Dickensian 21st century novel would be as weird a cultural experience as a sudden rash of non-ironic Mondrians. But a lot of the expectations contemporary readers have when we pick up a novel are the ones the great 19th century novelists — Austen, Dickens, Eliot — established for us. Perhaps the most important one is that, even after all the dissonances of modernism and post-modernism, the majority of readers still expect a novel to be satisfying, whether it’s a mystery or a romance or science fiction, whether it ends with a birth, a marriage or a death.
Really fascinating piece on Dickens and his work!
Barnes & Nobel, Taking on Amazon in the Fight of its Life – New York Times – Julie Bosman
Like many struggling businesses, book publishers are cutting costs and trimming work forces. Yes, electronic books are booming, sometimes profitably, but not many publishers want e-books to dominate print books. Amazon’s chief executive, Jeffrey P. Bezos, wants to cut out the middleman — that is, traditional publishers — by publishing e-books directly.
Which is why Barnes & Noble, once viewed as the brutal capitalist of the book trade, now seems so crucial to that industry’s future. Sure, you can buy bestsellers at Walmart and potboilers at the supermarket. But in many locales, Barnes & Noble is the only retailer offering a wide selection of books. If something were to happen to Barnes & Noble, if it were merely to scale back its ambitions, Amazon could become even more powerful and — well, the very thought makes publishers queasy.
“It would be like ‘The Road,’ ” one publishing executive in New York said, half-jokingly, referring to the Cormac McCarthy novel. “The post-apocalyptic world of publishing, with publishers pushing shopping carts down Broadway.”
I laughed at that last comment, but it really is a Doomsday approach. B&N v Amazon, with publishers siding a chain bookstore. Oh, so complicated. What do you think? Be sure to read the whole story – it’s pretty extensive.
Scribbles & Wanderlust 