Science fiction author Ray Bradbury dead at 91
I can honestly say that my world just crumbled.
I never had the opportunity to meet this man and openly gush about how much his work has meant to me. He is a wonder, someone who’s love for life was so boundless and contagious that it was impossible to not want to run away with him. Whether it was an escape to Mars or reminiscing on small town life, he wrote daily and continued publishing well into his 80s and 90s.
I’m sincerely going to miss you, Mr Bradbury. Best of luck on your next big adventure.
Encyclopedia Britannica ends print, goes digital
The Encyclopedia Britannica, which has been in continuous print since it was first published in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1768, said Tuesday it will end publication of its printed editions and continue with digital versions available online.
“Britannica was one of the first companies to really feel the full impact of technology, maybe 20 years ago, and we have been adapting to it, though it is very difficult at times,” he said.
While Encyclopedia Britannica has continued to operate, he expected “many trade publishers will not survive — and any content development company will have to be thinking about how they are going to fill the gap.”
As to whether print editions of books will be viable products in the future, Cauz predicted, “print may not completely vanish from the market, but I think it is going to be increasingly less important. Many publications will never have a print analog and will only be printed on digital formats.”
"Librotraficantes" Bring Banned Books into Arizona
Phoenix - Tony Diaz, aka “El Librotraficante” (or book smuggler) is arriving in Tucson on Friday with a truckload of Mexican-American books that were effectively banned from the Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) to distribute to a network of “underground libraries.”
The caravan, which started in Houston on March 12, aims to draw attention to a state law in Arizona banning ethnic studies that was used by politicians to shut down a Tucson Mexican-American Studies Program and literally box its books away.
“Every great movement is sparked by outrage at a deep cultural offense,” said Diaz, founder of Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say, a group that promotes Latino authors and culture. “Latinos are not the sleeping giant; we’re the working giant. When any state in this nation passes an anti-Latino law they’ll know we’ll respond together,” he said.
Authors and publishers have joined the cause by donating and re-printing books: Wings Press, for example, reprinted one of the banned books, “Curandera” by Carmen Tafolla, and donated 100 copies to take on the road to Tucson, said Diaz.
[…]
“Of course this banning is raw, ugly racism. But may I suggest that it’s good it’s out in the open and publicly displayed? And with this we teach metaphor: our literature has always been put away, carted to storage. What’s new is that books got out, to ambitious, bright young people no less, and now have been confiscated. Doesn’t that sort of describe the Mexican American experience for the last 200 years? We’re not treated as if we’re from here, that we have our history here, that our land and history is part of the country’s land and history.”
Awkward! #SOPA author Lamar Smith is a copyright violator:
Used a photo that is Creative Commons licensed, but didn’t give credit (which is in the terms of use). smh.
Cultural history of camouflage wins Warwick Prize for Writing
“A cultural history of mimicry and camouflage has won this year’s Warwick Prize for Writing.
‘Dazzled and Deceived’ by writer and journalist Peter Forbes took the £50,000 award, given biennially by the university of Warwick, at a ceremony at the Royal Festival Hall on London’s South Bank. Uniquely the lucrative prize is open to any genre of writing but chooses a different theme each time; this year’s was ‘colour’.”
June 4, 2010
The signs of the coming apocalypse are many, but none are starker than this Web headline in the April issue of O: The Oprah Magazine: “Spring Fashion Modeled by Rising Young Poets.”
(via thelifeguardlibrarian)
Douglas Adams's Doctor Who story to be novelised
“A novelisation of the “lost” Doctor Who serial Shada, scripted by Hitchhiker’s Guide author Douglas Adams in 1979, will be published next year.
Adams wrote three series of Doctor Who in the late 1970s, when he was in his twenties and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was first airing as a BBC radio comedy. Shada was intended as a six-part drama to finish off the 17th season, with Tom Baker in the role of the Doctor. The story features the Time Lord coming to Earth with assistant Romana (Lalla Ward) to visit Professor Chronotis, who has absconded from Gallifrey, the Doctor’s home planet, and now lives quietly at Cambridge college St Cedd’s. (The Doctor: “When I was on the river I heard the strange babble of inhuman voices, didn’t you, Romana?” Professor Chronotis: “Oh, probably undergraduates talking to each other, I expect.”)”
