Thursday 31 January 2013
Monday 28 January 2013
Pride and Prejudice at 200: from Colin Firth groupies to Jane Austen erotica
Obsessive Jane
Austen fans or “Janeites” are nothing new. The term “Janeite” was coined
in 1894 by George Saintsbury in his preface to a new edition of Pride and
Prejudice. In 1924 Rudyard Kipling wrote a short story, “The Janeites”,
about First World War soldiers who coped with the horrors of trench warfare
by discussing their love of Austen’s novels. Fans of Austen seem, almost
uniquely, to feel the need to identify with the heroines, in a way that fans
of George Eliot (for example) do not. A symptom of this is the novel The
Jane Austen Book Club (2004) by Karen Joy Fowler and its 2007 film
adaptation. Five women and one man meet monthly to discuss Austen’s novels.
Each of them relates to Austen’s work in different ways; as the narrator
sums it up: “It was essential to reintroduce Austen into your life regularly
... let her look around.”
Pride and Prejudice at 200: take the quiz
It is a truth universally acknowledged that we all like a good literary quiz, so prove you can tell your Bennets from your Bingleys and your de Bourghs from your Darcys with our test of Jane Austen's greatest novel, Pride and Prejudice.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/books-life/9831077/Pride-and-Prejudice-at-200-take-the-quiz.html
Pride and Prejudice: Jane Austen fans celebrate novel's 200th anniversary
It has one of the most
famous opening lines in literature, it turned Colin Firth into a
heartthrob and it spawned a zombie spin-off. Now Pride and Prejudice has
reached the venerable age of 200.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that the bicentenary
of Pride and Prejudice will be accompanied by a surge of Jane
Austen-related events and merchandise - and articles that shamelessly
hijack the novel's first sentence.
Monday's anniversary is being marked by a "readathon" of the novel at the Jane Austen Centre in Bath, which has launched an 11th-hour internet campaign to find an international star to read the first chapter.
How to use your iPhone, iPad or Mac to borrow ebooks from the library
You may be familiar with purchasing books and magazines for your iPhone
and iPad, but have you ever borrowed an ebook or digital edition of a
magazine from your local library? As more and more local libraries are
adding online digital catalogs of books for borrowing, it’s a great —
and cheaper! — way of building up your digital library for free. After
trying out a few methods for using the resources of your local library
to borrow electronic versions of your favorite ebooks, magazines and
audiobooks, I’ve written up a quick guide to follow.
Janeites: The curious American cult of Jane Austen
Two centuries after her
most famous work, Jane Austen inspires huge devotion in the US. What
makes this most English of writers so appealing to Americans?
She wrote it herself in 1813: "How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book."
Jane Austen's own work is a case in point. It may be 200
years since her most celebrated novel, Pride and Prejudice, was
published, but in the US she is the subject of more wildly devotional
fan-worship than ever.
With their conventions, Regency costumes and self-written
"sequels" to their heroine's novels, Austen's most dedicated adherents
display a fervency easily rivalling that of the subcultures around Star
Trek or Harry Potter.
Monday 14 January 2013
Favorite Book Cover Designs of 2012
NY Times
We asked people in and around the world of graphic design to name
one of their favorite book covers from 2012 and briefly describe its
appeal.
Der Zauber der Wirklichkeit
Buchtipp Der Zauber der Wirklichkeit
Von Frank Patalong
Ein Buch von Richard Dawkins als weihnachtlichen Tipp zu empfehlen,
hat eine gewisse Ironie - denn Dawkins ist vielen religiösen Menschen
ein Graus. Der Engländer ist einer der einflussreichsten
Evolutionsbiologen der vergangenen 50 Jahre und zugleich der
prominenteste Vertreter einer Bewegung offensiv auftretender Atheisten.
Inzwischen hat er den Kampf gegen den erstarkenden religiösen
Fundamentalismus zu seiner Sache gemacht.
America's first bookless public library will look 'like an Apple Store'
Bexar County, Texas says that it will open
the first 100 percent digital public library system in the country,
unveiling plans for its first location this past week. The plan has been
in the works for a while, headed up by Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff,
who says he was inspired to create a digitally native library while
reading Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs.
"If you want to get an idea what it looks like, go into an Apple
store," Wolff told the San Antonio Express News. Called BiblioTech, the
library system plans for several locations, starting with a first one in
the fall of 2013 on the south side of the county. Wolff says this
system won't be a replacement for the County's City library system, but
an enhancement to it. They plan to save money by using buildings which
are already owned by Bexar County, and have estimated that beginning
costs are around $250,000 to secure the first 10,000 titles for the
library.
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