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When F. Scott Fitzgerald Judged Gatsby By Its Cover

With a big Hollywood movie now in theaters, some recent printings of the book have abandoned the classic cover in favor of one that ties in more closely with the film. So high school students working their way through the summer reading list this year will be hard pressed to find a copy without [...]

Aesthetics | Books | Culture | Design | Drama | Literature

Jaz Parkinson “Colour Signatures”

Amusing visual representations of the color references in a handful of literary works. These are my colour signatures, an ongoing collection which are basically graphs of all the visual content in the books. For example when it might say ‘yellow brick road,’ ‘yellow’ gets a tally, or when for example in The Road it says [...]

Academia | Books | Culture | Humanities | Literature | Science

Huge Collection of Free CC-Licensed Textbooks (2012)

2012 Book Archive.

Business, humanities, writing, science.

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Books | Culture | Cyberculture | Design | Literacy | Media | Science | Technology | Uncategorized

The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Paper versus Screens: Scientific American

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As digital texts and technologies become more prevalent, we gain new and more mobile ways of reading—but are we still reading as attentively and thoroughly? How do our brains respond differently to onscreen text than to words on paper? Should we be worried about dividing our attention between pixels and ink or is the validity [...]

Aesthetics | Books | Culture | Design | Education | Humanities | Personal

Richard Scarry unfinished manuscript to be published

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Some of my happiest memories of fatherhood include introducing my kids to the Richard Scarry books.

Featuring a huge anthropomorphised cast, with recurring characters such as Sergeant Murphy, traffic hound and pursuer of miscreants, and solid, cheerful, lederhosen-wearing Huckle Cat, Scarry’s tales of mishap, derring-do, industry and shopping always feel deeply, richly safe. Some aspects [...]

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Real college classes have writing assignments and required reading.

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While I can imagine teaching a course that intersects with the interests of a wide, non academic audience, a series of free, optional online public lectures would be great public service, but not great teaching.

I’m sorry if this bursts anyone’s bubble, but watching videos on the Internet and maybe writing a few very short [...]

Books | Culture | History | Humanities | Technology | Writing

What Is the Business of Literature?

[W]hat was the business of literature, pre-book? There were words, for sure, and there was culture. There were books and there were writers. They were paid, in fact. Very well. But few writers of today would likely forgo the life of the twenty-first-century writer for that of a thirteenth-century writer.

Moreover, the role of the [...]

Books | Culture | Cyberculture | Media | Writing

The art of making magazines (edited by victor s. navasky and evan cornog)

If you’re reading this, it’s a safe bet you read magazines. Technically, you may even be reading one now—though I’m not sure if bookforum.com really qualifies. The “.com” might denote precisely what isn’t Bookforum. I’m typing onto a computer screen; you’re reading from one. No trees have been killed. Are we in a magazine? I’m [...]

Amusing | Books | Health | Language | Literature | Modding | Writing

McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: Banned Performance Enhancing Substances in Literary Competitions.

PROUSTZAC

Enhances and enriches remembrance of things past. Can lead to increased carbohydrate consumption.

McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: Banned Performance Enhancing Substances in Literary Competitions..

Books | Culture | Cyberculture | History | Media | Modding | Writing

Len Deighton’s Bomber, the first book ever written on a word processor.

The talented and insightful scholar Matt Kirschenbaum tells a wonderful story.

Deighton stood outside his Georgian terrace home and watched as workers removed a window so that a 200-pound unit could be hoisted inside with a crane. The machine was IBM’s MTST (Magnetic Tape Selectric Typewriter), sold in the European market as the MT72. “Standing [...]