Blogcritics The critical lens on today's culture & entertainment
PBS launching children’s literacy campaign: PBS today announced a major partnership with Target Stores to launch an unprecedented public service campaign to promote children’s literacy. In this effort, the PBS KIDS Share a Story initiative, sponsored by Target, will use on-air and online programming, along with the unparalleled resources of …
Read More »Tag Archives: books
9/11 Book Glut
As someone with a hand in two different 9/11 books, I am going to ignore the following report: Veteran New York City fireman John McCole has faced many challenges in his career but he is now undertaking a particularly daunting task: getting people to read his book about September 11. …
Read More »Nobel Pays
PW reports that the Nobel Prize has already given a lift to Imre Kertesz’s American publisher: Imre Kertesz, the hungarian novelist who won this year’s Nobel Prize for literature, has been a boon for Northwestern University Press, which publishes him in English. Acting press director Donna Shear says the house …
Read More »Throne Literature
Just yesterday we noted a strange efflorescence of commodes in the news. It’s happened again: Citing the perception that people like to read on in the john, a German publisher has begun publishing toilet paper literature, including poems by Heinrich Heine and Christian Morgenstern, as well as short mystery stories, …
Read More »Book TV
This Weekend on Book TV: National Book Festival Focusing on serious nonfiction and the publishing industry, Book TV airs continuously each weekend from Saturday at 8 a.m. to Monday at 8 a.m. on C-SPAN2. Highlights and featured authors for this coming weekend: Saturday, October 12 (All times Eastern) 8:30 a.m. …
Read More »More On Bertelsmann
As discussed here, German media conglomerate Bertelsmann sold millions of anti-Semitic books during the Nazi era and used Jewish slave laborers according to its own commission. The Independent has more on the matter: In June 1998, Bertelsmann triumphantly took over the US publisher Random House, and its chairman at the …
Read More »Borders Returns to Lower Manhattan
PW Daily reports that Borders is opening a new superstore near Ground Zero: Borders Books and Music has signed a lease to open a new store in the American Surety Building at 100 Broadway in lower Manhattan, replacing the flagship store that was destroyed last year in the collapse of …
Read More »Chomsky Redux
Gene Healy reviewed Noam Chomsky’s 9/11 book here extremely well last month, and since I agree with virtually all of his judgments, I will not reinvent this particular wheel. But I ran across this article that tells us Mr. Chomsky’s book has sold well over 100,000 copies, is even now …
Read More »Bertelsmann Profited Greatly in Nazi Era
German media conglomerate Bertelsmann sold millions of anti-Semitic books during the Nazi era and used Jewish slave laborers according to its own commission: Bertelsmann tapped the rising Nazi tide to switch from publishing religious and school books to entertainment for the German army, selling 19 million books to soldiers in …
Read More »Marvel Masterworks: Amazing Spider-Man Volume II
Thanks to the box office numbers of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man, we’ve been getting a raft of good reprint collections devoted to the character: none so great as the recent “Marvel Masterworks” re-issue of Amazing Spider-Man, Volume Two. Spent the weekend re-reading the stories in this book for the first time …
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