Author name: Booksquare

Maybe we’re reading too much into this opinion piece from The Guardian, but it appears that bringing the books that people want to read to them is anti-democratic. Lower prices and convenience are bad. The legacy of Penguin will not be the fact that more readers could afford books, but that more readers could afford books. Next thing you know, the masses will be attending the opera*. Even George Orwell worried about the likely effect on the book trade, reasoning that someone with five shillings to spend on books would probably settle for three sixpenny paperbacks rather than two half-crown […]

To hear it told, you’d think the world was ending. Nobody reads, nobody thinks. Yet there’s lots of evidence that plenty of reading and thinking is happening. In his new essay collection Bookmark Now, Kevin Smokler addresss the issue of reading and writing in these supposedley unreaderly times. As the opening piece, where a writer looks back at the irony, missed at the time, of his time as a soldier, reading Hemingway in Africa, indicates, there is far more reading happening than the watchful eyes of statisticians realize. Below, Kevin talks about his project and issues a call to arms

We’re taking a day off, but don’t go thinking that means you’re off the hook around here! Later today, we have an interview with Kevin Smokler. Kevin will be talking about Bookmark Now and how reading may not be as at risk as recent studies indicate. We’ll be back tomorrow, ready to annoy, annoy, annoy!

It is us, or are we being bombarded with robot news? Everywhere we turn, people want to talk about robot. Also, pictures. Rather than join the fray, we’re going to offer a brief commercial break: Introducing the Writerbo. No, you can’t really buy one. You have to make your own excuses. Special thanks to Susan G for providing us yet another way to avoid joining the world of functioning adults. Christ, Why Do I Bother? I’m Such a Hack.