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Category Archives: Reading
Since I just read Anne Enright’s short story yesterday….
What’s the best book you’ve ever received as a gift?Can I tell you instead of the best book I ever gave? My mother used to talk about the first grown-up book she read, at the age of 7. She remembered … Continue reading
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“Novels are machines for falsely generating belief”… essay on fiction, by Zadie Smith in The New York Review of Books
Great essay on writing (and reading) fiction by Zadie Smith. Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.) I’m sure I’m not the first novelist to dig up that old Whitman chestnut … Continue reading
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Reading fiction because it is actually better than binge-watching
Yes! From Ben Dolnick: And pleasure is, after all — once I scrape away the layers of self-image and pretentiousness — the reason that I read. When I’ve found the right book, and I’m reading it the right way, reading … Continue reading
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Photo of readers in Sheigu library in Upper East, #Ghana
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Jill Lepore on Rachel Carson in The New Yorker, March 2018
A fantastic writer paying homage, so gracefully, to a writer of another generation. Lepore uncovers for the modern reader enough about Carson’s life, but mostly about her writings on the sea (as opposed to her more well-known book on DDT) … Continue reading
Posted in Book and film reviews, Development thinking, Reading
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From the IFLA 2017 Trend Report for libraries around the world
We need ubiquitous individual Internet connectivity – but while we work on that problem we need to guarantee that libraries – all of them, every single one – can provide Internet access to those who visit them, so even those … Continue reading
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Should you read the 2018 World Development Report? Not if you care about libraries and reading books (fiction and picture books)
Public and school libraries and reading books (fiction and picture books) get not a single mention in the 200 page WDR report that proclaims it is “the first ever devoted entirely to education.” The report is full of analysis of … Continue reading
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What libraries are for! Reading in Sumbrungu
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The AfLIA Leadership Academy – Call for Applications
AfLIA is collaborating with the Public Library Association of the USA (PLA) to establish the AfLIA Leadership Academy aimed at: Building the knowledge, skills and confidence of library leaders to act in innovative and creative ways in meeting community needs … Continue reading
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Reading in FAVL-CESRUD library in Sumbrungu, Ghana
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Sending books to Burkina Faso
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Great trenchant essay on reading from Hisham Matar
Nothing we read can import new or foreign feelings that we don’t, in one form or another, already possess. “Every reader,” as Marcel Proust writes in “Time Regained,” “is actually the reader of himself.” Books can’t install unknown feelings or … Continue reading
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Dounko shared this picture… kids in the library reading Où est ma poule, book I did with Ezequiel Olvera…
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“Reading Harry Potter lowers Americans’ opinions of Donald Trump, study finds”: When you read a headline like that, please click somewhere else
The are so many reasons why this should be buried. But maybe it can bring some attention to Friends of African Village Libraries? Mutz polled a nationally representative sample of 1,142 Americans in 2014, and again in 2016, asking about … Continue reading
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Another #IGEL2016 paper: Anne Mangen on reading fiction
Anne Mangen from the Norwegian Reading Center reported on a replication effort (with Anezka Kuzmicova) of the widely reported Kidd and Castano 2013 paper on whether Chekhovian fiction produced more empathy than regular writing. The sample size was small, just … Continue reading
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IGEL 2016: Candice Burkett on how readers interpret fiction
At the recent IGEL meetings in Chicago I liked a paper by Candice Burkett about the correlates of more sophisticated interpretations of literary texts. She and coauthor Susan Goldman measured how often students mentioned three kinds of indicators: basic gestures … Continue reading
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IGEL conference: Perspective taking in literature
Marissa Bertolussi and Peter Dixon reported on an experiment about perspective-taking when reading fiction. The question is how effortful perspective-taking is; the assumption seen sometimes is that perspective-taking is basically effortless. The experiment manipulates, through interruption of the reading experience, … Continue reading
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Heading off to The 9th International Symposium on Library Services for Children and Young Adults in South Korea
The 9th International Symposium on Library Services for Children and Young Adults is hosted by the National Library for Children and Young Adults (NLCY) in South Korea. The conference starts on Tuesday Sept. 8 in Seoul and Buyeo Island. Lots … Continue reading
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IFLA Day # 4
Started to morning bright and early at 8am with colleagues at the Section for Children and Young Adults. The chair of the IFLA section was passed from Viviana Quinones to Ingrid Bon. Ingrid turned straight to me: What about this … Continue reading
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Michael Kevane 