More about giving books to Mandrem

Take a look at the blog post by Helping Elsewhere to hear more about the books given to Mandrem in Goa. So good to hear how the books are received and also to hear more about this wonderful organisation. Let's hope we can do something with them again.

Technology enriches the written word...

So writes Ben Macintyre in an interesting article in The Times called "Qwerty is the key to our love of language." He says: 'Readers and writers alike should embrace each new advance in the deployment and enjoyment of words.' Check out the whole article. The conversation continues....

So can you love a library of e-books?

Article by Joanna Trollope arguing that to appreciate a book fully you 'have to feel the heft of [it] in your hand' . And a comment on the Telegraph leader page taking this up, and celebrating the new technology, for the more ways to read the better. The conversation will run and run....

Making books and the e-revolution

An interesting article today by Gaby Wood about the excellent Slightly Foxed.  Amongst other things, they now publish books: real books, printed and bound and selling like hot cakes. The conversation continues...

Why read?

The conversation continues. An article by Keith Oatley, Professor Emeritus of Cognitive Psychology at the University of Toronto and author of Such Stuff as Dreams:  'When we read (for example) Chekhov's "The Lady with the Little Dog" we can be both ourselves and Gomov or Anna. Through stories, selfhood can expand.'

Fantastic Flying Books...

Paula, our newest volunteer, has sent us this Fantastic Film of Flying Books. Thanks, Paula.

What is reading for?

Last weekend in her excellent column in The Times Erica Wagner mentioned the pamphlet What is Reading For? by Robert Bringhurst. He's a historian of typography and, writes Wagner, 'reading is as much a physical process as an intellectual one. "Reading" began with our bodies. Literature predates the book by tens of thousands of years; literature was, for most of human history, passed from mouth to ear, and came out of humankind's deep physical engagement with the world. Literature is life.
Life and literature both deserve celebration--and respect. Bringhurst does not dismiss the e-book; rather he draws our attention back to the possibilities of the text embodied in beauty.'