Happy April Fool’s Day!

  • After dispensing with fines, Seattle Public Library dispenses with fine dispensers.

    Back on January 2, 2020, joining a movement being embraced by many public libraries across the country, the Seattle Public Library decided to end its longheld practice of charging late fees for items returned after their due dates. The move has been a rousing success, restoring access to many Seattlites for whom excessive late fees… Continue reading

  • Unbanned Books: A Celebration

    With all the attention that has been garnered by alarming censorship challenges that have been erupting in libraries and school districts across the nation, we thought it might be nice to focus on the bright side. Here are just some of the many books deemed so harmless that their place on library shelves hasn’t been… Continue reading

  • With “Masked Classics” Pandemic Publishing Comes of Age

    With “Masked Classics” Pandemic Publishing Comes of Age

    When in doubt, fall back on a classic. It worked for Pride, Prejudice and Zombies and its many spinoffs, and now resourceful publishers, making up for lost time and revenue, aim to make it work for a pandemic-weary reading public. Gimik Books (a division of Langweiliger-Zellstoff) has just premiered a new line of “masked classics,”… Continue reading

  • New Fiction & Non-Fiction Roundup, April 2019

    On the first of every month, we usually publish our roundup of new fiction & non-fiction releases for the month ahead, but this month there are so many fascinating titles coming out, we’ve decided to spread the wealth across two days of posts. Here’s a quick preview of books released just today. 4/1: Harold Runs… Continue reading

  • Avengers Spoiler Alert: Andy Serkis is playing WHO?

    Ms. Marvel, White Wolf, Mantis, Drax, Falcon, Peter Dinklage as Pip the Troll!… Just when you thought the burgeoning cast of characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe couldn’t get any more crowded, Hollywood Insider has gained access to leaked scripts for an as-yet-untitled Avengers movie due out in April 2020 that reveal a veritable avalanche of… Continue reading

  • Shakespeare’s Skull Found …in Brooklyn!

    As reported in Smithsonian and The New York Times, archaeologists using ground penetrating radar have recently discovered that despite its dire inscription of “Curst be he moves my bones,” William Shakespeare’s tomb was probably disturbed in the late 18th century by grave robbers out to steal the genius’s skull. In a startling turn of events reminiscent of… Continue reading

  • Kids Agree: Books are no longer cool

                     ~ Posted by David W. To many it came as a shock. Just as conventional wisdom chorused that in our increasingly plugged-in society print books were destined to get left behind, a series of studies and articles from such sources as Nielsen, Publishing Technology, Hewlett Packard, The Pew Research Center,… Continue reading

  • Pulit-Surprise! Pulitzer Prize winners leaked.

    Just when you thought things couldn’t get any stranger with the Pulitzer Prize, a list of this year’s award winners and finalists has been leaked a full two weeks before their scheduled announcement on April 15. Continue reading

  • An eBook for True Booklovers.

    If 2011 is the year of the eBook, it might also be considered the year of the eBook rant, as editorials declare their undying loyalty to leather tomes. eBooks just don’t compare, they say. How can you curl up with an eBook, they ask? eBooks just don’t feel the same in your hand, they don’t have the same texture, they don’t have… Continue reading

  • Great writers born in 2010, so far.

    It seems as though we’ve lost an awful lot of writers in 2010, and the year’s still young. Many will remember where they were when they heard J.D. Salinger was gone, and the recent deaths of Robert B. Parker, Dick Francis, Kage Baker, Louis Auchincloss, Barry Hannah, Erich Segal, Howard Zinn and others have made this… Continue reading

  • New literary craze has readers topsy-turvy!

    Readers of avant-garde literature are flipping over the latest experimental wrinkle in fiction. Inspired by the narrative hijinx of such post-modern stylists as the late David Foster Wallace, and Mark Danielewski (whose Only Revolutions asks the reader to rotate the book while reading), a bold new breed of writers and publishers are literally overturning the literary scene with what may be the… Continue reading

  • Free Books @ the library!

    In what some have called a daring and radical departure from the successful business models of Barnes & Noble, Netflix and iTunes, The Seattle Public Library is loaning books, DVDs and music free of charge to anyone with a library card. In a scheme well-calculated to take advantage of the current thrift craze (or cheap… Continue reading