To Boycott, Or Not To Boycott?

November 8, 2013

Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card, is considered one of the classics of science fiction.  It has appeared near the top of any comprehensive list of the best of sci-fi and fantasy since it was originally published, in 1985.  It is the winner of both the Hugo and Nebula awards, the highest honors in the […]


2013 Dylan Thomas Prize

November 8, 2013

29-year-old Claire Vaye Watkins has won this year’s Dylan Thomas Prize for her debut story collection Battleborn. “Aimed at encouraging raw creative talent worldwide” the prize is restricted to writers under 30 and is worth 30,000 pounds (about $48,000).” Ms. Watkins also won two other major prizes on the same day: the $10,000 Rosenthal Family […]


Local Art @ EPL

November 7, 2013

We are pleased to introduce Evanston photographer Marc Perlish as the next artist in our ongoing exhibition series Local Art @ EPL.  Throughout November, his striking new collection will be on display on the 2nd floor of EPL’s Main Library where it pays “poetic homage to Bookman’s Alley and the bookstore’s imaginative creator Roger Carlson.”  […]


Albert Camus – Still Controversial After 100 Years

November 7, 2013

French writer and philosopher Albert Camus, born 100 years ago today in Algeria is probably best known for his novels The Stranger and The Plague. But as France marks his centennial, “it’s his politics, not his his philosophy, that  still makes waves.” Winning the Nobel Prize for literature in 1957 and regarded as a giant […]


Sports writer Rich Cohen in Chicago area this week

November 5, 2013

I heard the interview with Rich Cohen on NPR recently and, lo and behold, he’s touring our area to promote his new book, “Monsters: The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football.”  He was informative about football history and gave quite a bit of background surrounding the famed ’85 Bears. (This is from […]


The Little Free Library movement makes the front page!

November 5, 2013

Today’s Chicago Trib ran a front page story on the popularity and the global growth of the Little Free Library movement which has been reported about on this blog a number of times in the past. Free books housed in charming (weather-proof) little structures are placed on private property for passersby to use. They can […]


Neustadt International Prize for Literature

November 5, 2013

The 2014 Neustadt International Prize for Literature has been awarded to Mozambican author Antonio Emilio Leite Couto (Mia Couto). The first Mozambican author to be nominated for and to win this prize, Couto noted: “It is a sad moment for Mozambique because we are starting a war that we thought would never come back again. So […]


2013 Intellectual Freedom Award

November 4, 2013

Chicago’s Lane Tech student body and the school’s 451 Degrees Banned Book Club received the Illinois Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom Award for their protest against the removal of Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel Persepolis. Chicago Public schools removed the novel from seventh grade classrooms because of its “powerful images of torture.” Lane Tech students waved signs […]


Bits and Bytes of Storytelling

November 4, 2013

Interesting article in Sunday’s NYTimes Book Review section asked more than a dozen authors to talk about how new and changing technologies affect their storytelling. The writers commenting include Lee Child, Marisha Pessl, Frederick Forsyth, Douglas Coupland, Emily Giffin, and Ander Monson, among others. I love Margaret Atwood‘s response: “Do new technologies change what plot […]


Preserving the Internet

November 2, 2013

An article about Israel’s attempt to preserve most of their websites for history caught my attention. Israel’s archive will be produced through the National Library. The stated purpose of this activity is to “preserve online publications published on Israeli websites for coming generations, just as books and other printed material are preserved.” Who else is pursuing this? The US […]


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