http://www.cbc.ca/i/caffeine/syndicate/?mediaId=2674238485
This 45-minute documentary delves into the stories of the human books who participated in the CBC’s Human Library project…. SOURCE: Human Library Stories | Absolutely Ottawa | CBC Player
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Unread Book is presented by Pogona Creative and the Orange Public Library in association with Chapman University and was originally prepared for National Library Week.
The day Ridley Scott called NASA was a great day for NASA. Scott, or Sir Ridley, or the dude who has directed several of the greatest sci-fi movies of all time, plus Thelma and Louise, was in the early stages of his newest movie, The Martian, based on the mega-popular novel by Andy Weir.
The Martian is a deadly simple tale of an astronaut named Mark Watney (played by Matt Damon) trying to survive and eventually escape from Mars after being stranded there. But the most important fact about The Martian is not all of the extreme close ups on Matt Damon’s handsome astronaut mug (there are many!). It’s that The Martian is extremely recent science fiction. Its set in a version of the future that is not distant or fantastic, but familiar and possible. And the premise of the story is based on just the type of mission that NASA is planning. READ MORE: Why NASA Helped Ridley Scott Create ‘The Martian’ Film | Popular Science
We recently asked subscribers of the BuzzFeed Books newsletter to tell us about a book that would definitely make us cry. They gave us a lot to choose from, so take your pick — and maybe grab some tissues, too. READ MORE: 53 Books That Will Definitely Make You Cry | BuzzFeed
“Food deserts” refer to low-income areas where convenience stores are often the only viable food source and fresh produce is a rarity. But nutritious foods aren’t the only thing kids need to thrive and grow. Many of these undernourished kids also live in so-called “book deserts”—areas without easy access to libraries and reading material to nurture their imaginations and development (just think of the 12-year-old boy in Utah who asked his mailman for junk mail to read because he couldn’t get to a library). To combat these problems, creative-thinking librarians and literacy supporters are using inventive solutions to expand access to books and promote a love of reading. READ MORE: Librarians on Bikes Are Delivering Books and WiFi to Kids in “Book Deserts” | GOOD
For some members of the Class of 2019, the choice of “Fun Home” as a summer reading book was anything but fun. Several incoming freshmen decided not to read “Fun Home” because its sexual images and themes conflicted with their personal and religious beliefs. Freshman Brian Grasso posted in the Class of 2019 Facebook page July 26 that he would not read the book “because of the graphic visual depictions of sexuality,” igniting conversation among students. The graphic novel, written by Alison Bechdel, chronicles her relationship with her father and her issues with sexual identity. READ MORE: Freshmen skipping ‘Fun Home’ for moral reasons | The Chronicle.
This video of Laurent Bernadac, an engineer and lifelong musician, playing the violin looks and sounds very little like a person playing the violin. For one thing, he’s also using a looper and effects pedals to jam out something funkier and jazzier than you’d expect from an instrument more commonly associated with classical and country. But, more ostensibly, Bernadac is playing something that looks more like an avian skeleton than a stringed instrument. It’s like the ghost of a violin.
It’s a 3Dvarius, a 3-D printed electric violin. It’s based on the renowned Stradivarius violins crafted by the Stradivari family in the late 1600s and early 1700s, but you’d have a hard time sleuthing out the shared DNA between the two machines. It is, as Bernadac says, “a new kind of musical instrument,” one with an algorithmically optimized weight and a digital sound. READ MORE: The 3-D Printed Violin That Could Lead to a New Stradivarius | WIRED.
A second-grade education has not stopped garbage collector Jose Gutierrez from bringing the gift of reading to thousands of Colombian children. Gutierrez started rescuing books from the trash almost 20 years ago, when he was driving a garbage truck at night through the capital’s wealthier neighbourhoods. The discarded reading material slowly piled up, and now the ground floor of his small house is a makeshift community library stacked from floor to ceiling with some 20,000 books, ranging from chemistry textbooks to children’s classics. READ MORE: ‘Trashy’ books: garbage collector rescues reading material for Colombian children | Times Colonist.
A Japanese bookseller is fighting back against online retail giants like Amazon by buying up a staggering 90 percent of the first printing of a famous Japanese author’s new collection of essays. READ MORE: Japanese Bookseller Buys Almost Every Copy Of New Murakami Book To Protest Amazon | Huffington Post
The last few years have seen the biggest change in how young people spend their time since the invention of the television – but is it a good thing? READ MORE: Are tablet computers harming our children’s ability to read? | Technology | The Guardian.
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