New Left Review 107, September-October 2017

rebecca lossin

AGAINST THE UNIVERSAL LIBRARY

In 2004, I decided to become a librarian. I did so because I love reading and I needed to make a living in a fashion that would not, or so I hoped, leave me feeling alienated and depressed. In particular, I love reading books. Often long and dedicated to a single idea, argument or story, books are also incredibly durable. They can survive coffee spills, the interior of my over-stuffed handbag, and if my niece pulls them off the table, I am not faced with a small financial crisis. The best thing about a printed book, however, is what it does not do. I cannot use it to watch television or check my email. My mother will never call me on it. My boss will never use it to interrupt me. In an age of constant media distractions, having a single object dedicated to a single activity—reading—is increasingly important. If nothing else, books that cannot be searched by keyword remind us that good ideas are not always efficiently come by—that learning takes time.

Turning libraries into community centres – oder sonstige Zerstörung

Turning libraries into community centres. Libraries are for reading, not knitting.

Elisabetta Gasparoni, SPIKED 23 February 2016

Diebstahl und Digital

So gefährlich sind heutige Bibliotheken für Bücher

In Neapel bestiehlt ein Direktor seine eigene Bibliothek, in Zürich findet der Chef, dass ein paar Bücher als Attrappen reichen: Müssen wir uns um das gedruckte Buch in der Bibliothek Sorgen machen?

Marc Reichwein, DIE WELT 23.2.2016

We must cultivate a love of reading

Frank Furedi on the power of books, selfhood and Werther Fever.
Tim Black, books and essays editor, SPIKED, 16 Dec. 2015

A book opens the door to a new world. It allows us to reimagine our circumstances, to test our personality and our ideas. It makes us who we are, a self that continually develops and gains definition though reading.’

Frank Furedi, academic, writer and regular spiked contributor, is talking about his new book Power of Reading: From Socrates to Twitter, a fascinating, often revelatory account of the meaning and significance ascribed to reading and writing down the centuries. One thing that soon becomes clear in Power of Reading is that Furedi’s humanist love of letters has, for most of history, been the exception rather than the rule.

The future of libraries

The future of libraries – no books, no knowledge
Alka Sehgal Cuthbert, SPIKED, 15 December 2014

The Carnegie UK Trust has published its final report in its Enterprising Libraries series, a project aimed at making libraries more fundable by having them offer services that promote ‘economic wellbeing’. The report, Beyond Books: The Role of Enterprising Libraries in Promoting Economic Wellbeing, is the culmination of this project and offers recommendations for best practice.

Die Paris Review-Interviews in deutscher Auswahl

«Von Schriftstellern für Schriftsteller»
Dialog auf höchster Ebene – eine Auswahl von Literaten-Interviews aus der «Paris Review»
Michael Schmitt in der NZZ vom 12.11.2011:

Die 1953 gegründete «Paris Review» will Literatur auf hohem Niveau vermitteln. Interviews mit namhaften Autorinnen und Autoren dienen dabei als Lockspeise für ein grösseres Publikum. Eine Auswahl dieser Gespräche liegt nun auf Deutsch vor.

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Zwischen 2006 und 2009 erschienen The Paris Review Interviews I to IV:

The Paris Review Interviews, I
$16.00
Picador, 2006
Paperback; 510 pages

The first volume in the new four-volume selection of The Paris Review interviews, with an introduction by Philip Gourevitch. The book features interviews with:
Dorothy Parker
Truman Capote
Ernest Hemingway
T. S. Eliot
Saul Bellow
Jorge Luis Borges
Kurt Vonnegut
James M. Cain
Rebecca West
Elizabeth Bishop
Robert Stone
Robert Gottlieb
Richard Price
Billy Wilder
Jack Gilbert
Joan Didion

The New York Times calls The Paris Review interviews “the most remarkable and extensive interviewing project we possess” and the Times Literary Supplement of London says, "This book will intrigue and delight any serious reader or writer. It may even inspire.”

The Paris Review Interviews, II
$16.00
Picador, 2007
Paperback; 512 pages

The second volume in the new four-volume selection of The Paris Review interviews, with an introduction by Orhan Pamuk. The book features interviews with:
Graham Greene
James Thurber
William Faulkner
Robert Lowell
I. B. Singer
Eudora Welty
John Gardner
William Gaddis
Philip Larkin
James Baldwin
Gabriel García Márquez
Harold Bloom
Toni Morrison
Alice Munro
Peter Carey
Stephen King

The Paris Review Interviews, III
$16.00
Picador, 2008
Paperback; 446 pages

The third volume in the new four-volume selection of The Paris Review interviews, with an introduction by Margaret Atwood. The book features interviews with:
Ralph Ellison
Georges Simenon
Isak Dinesen
Evelyn Waugh
Ted Hughes
Harold Pinter
John Cheever
Chinua Achebe
Jean Rhys
Raymond Carver
William Carlos Williams
Joyce Carol Oates
Jan Morris
Martin Amis
Salman Rushdie
Norman Mailer

The Paris Review Interviews, IV
$14.00
Picador, 2009
Paperback; 478 pages

The final volume in the new four-volume selection of The Paris Review interviews, with an introduction by Salman Rushdie. The book features interviews with:
William Styron
Marianne Moore
Ezra Pound
Jack Kerouac
E. B. White
P. G. Wodehouse
John Ashbery
Philip Roth
Maya Angelou
Stephen Sondheim
V. S. Naipaul
Paul Auster
Haruki Murakami
Orhan Pamuk
David Grossman
Marilynne Robinson

The books business

Great digital expectations
Digitisation may have came late to book publishing, but it is transforming the business in short order
The Economist, September 10, 2011

Once the industry reacts to assumed consumer habits by such pace, one can measure the seriousness of the changes.