January 11, 2011
David McCullough, a two-time Pulitzer winning author of historical subjects, is coming out with a work about American artists and intellectuals in Paris in May. “The Greater Journey” is his first full-length work since “1776.” Shira S. Ben Franklin in Paris
January 11, 2011
The Lake Villa Public Library is hosting an event featuring Ellie Carlson, an expert on historical clothing, who will discuss women’s underwear. The event, titled “Unmentionables: The Rise and Fall of Ladies Underwear,” was originally restricted to women attendees due to the somewhat sensitive nature of the topic. But that made some male patrons very unhappy, […]
January 6, 2011
I like to think of my life as B.K. (Before Kobo), and A.K. (After Kobo). B.K. I was a healthy, happy woman who didn’t mind waiting for a popular book. Now, A.K., I am shelling out the big bucks for Hunger Games, Freedom, and other best sellers. Since I bought a Kobo last August, the only […]
January 6, 2011
A while ago I had recommended Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley, his last book, which was written in 1962. (He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature that year and died in 1968.) Now the claim is being made that, whether it is a favorite of generations or not, much of the book was not actually […]
January 5, 2011
It appears that Mark Twain needs to be cleaned up. Enough schools have banned the classic The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from their reading lists that two scholars are collaborating on an edited version that eliminates racial slurs, replacing them with less offensive terms. Listen to the story from Wednesday’s edition of NPR’s All Things Considered. Read the NPR News Blog and yesterday’s […]
January 4, 2011
For the real geeks out there, please feel free to read this whole article on new trends in consumer gadgets and computer devices. Companies are also releasing short videos hinting at their new products which may be unveiled at the convention this week. Motorola‘s was cute- a short, tongue-in-cheek history of the tablet. (There are […]
December 28, 2010
Robin Young, host of “Here and Now,” interviewed Bill Bryson about his latest work, At Home: a Short History of Private Life. Bryson lived with his family for many years in England and this book uses his historic home as a springboard to discuss many aspects of everyday life. To my mind, Bryson represents the […]
December 23, 2010
An analysis of book buying behavior indicates that 20% of consumers are interested in buying e-readers compared to only 10% last year. This article offers many facts about the public’s attitudes toward digital reading and a few graphs to demonstrate the changes. It also mentions the impact on print books. Shira S.
December 20, 2010
Library of America, which publishes classic American literature, has announced that it will offer e-books starting in 2011. It will have 30 titles available for the Kindle, the Nook, and the Sony Reader. The list of titles will be available on LOA‘s website in January. Additionally, LOA will publish Six Novels in Woodcuts by Chicago-born artist Lyn Ward […]
December 18, 2010
Adored by generations of children, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer was originally written in 1939 as a poem by Evanston native Robert L. May. A copy writer for Montgomery Ward, May wrote the story for Santa to give away to children visiting the Ward stores. Wards gave away 2.4 million copies of the story, but […]
