Posts by author
Ian MacAllen
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Check Your Magic
Muggle-born students of Hogwarts are an underprivileged class, while magic-born students enjoy unquantified privilege, argues Sarah Seltzer over at Flavorwire. Rowling creates a world where privilege and power are coupled together, just as wealth and race have allowed certain classes…
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Notable NYC: 3/28–4/3
Saturday 3/28: Monica McClure, Alexander Nemser, and Lewis Warsh read poetry. Steven Harvey Fine Arts Project, 2 p.m., free. Sunday 3/29: Anna Moschovakis, D. Marcus Johnson, Zahra “Raw Fiction” Patterson, Kim Prosa, Ken Wohlrob, and Akeema Dash Zane read Raw…
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Notable NYC: 3/21–3/27
Saturday 3/21: Phil Klay reads from his National Book Award for Fiction collection Redeployment. He is joined in conversation by Rob Spillman. Brooklyn Public Library, 4 p.m., free. Rob Crawford, Sabra Embury, Hannah Assadi, Genna Rivieccio, Amanda Killian, Armando Jaramillo…
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People Read Everywhere
Photographer Lawrence Schwartzwald finds people reading just about everywhere. He’s been going around New York City, snapping pictures of people reading books in unlikely places. Slate caught up with Scwartzwald, who explains his fascination with people and their books: You…
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Finding Buried Treasure (in the Library)
Librarians at the University of Buffalo have discovered priceless Greek and Roman coins—but they weren’t digging in the ground to find the artifacts. The coins were already in the library’s own collection. NPR reports that the coins, donated by Thomas…
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A Library of Wine
Napa Valley is one of the most bountiful producers of wine so perhaps its unsurprising that it’s also home to a comprehensive collection of writing about wine. Founded in 1962, the non-profit Napa Valley Wine Library has 3,500 volumes including…
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Books Without Books
If you’re old enough to remember VHS cassettes, its likely you also remember the revolutionary straight-to-video category of movies. Now, Audible wants to do the same for literature with straight-to-audiobooks. Audible, an Amazon subsidiary, is a key player in the…
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Notable NYC: 3/14–3/20
Saturday 3/14: Mike Lala, Dolan Morgan, Allyson Paty, Haleh Roshan Stilwell, Jacob Perkins, Matt Nelson, Alain Stamatis, and Kalliopi Mathios celebrate mouth tattoos. Mellow Pages Library, 7 p.m., free. Asha Sasha John and Xeňa Stanislavovna Semjonová join the Segue Series.…
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James Patterson, Philanthropist
Bestselling author James Patterson is giving school libraries $1.25 million in grants of $1,000 to $10,000 for books, reading programs, and technology, reports the Washington Post. Patterson has previously pledged $1 million to 175 independent bookstores. His generosity is all…
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Stars Wars Gets Canonical LGBT Character
The Star Wars franchise is adding a lesbian character, the first in the official canon. Moff Mors will be included in the upcoming novel Lords of the Sith by Paul S. Kemp, reports the Guardian.
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Post-Internet Poetry
The Internet is no longer a magical, shiny new gizmo, but just another tool in the artist’s box. For poets like Steve Zultanski and Vanessa Place, their poetry begins with the web, but that tangential relationship recedes away from the…
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A Subway Library
Beijing’s subway system is adding a new amenity: a library. The ultra-modern system already has underground wi-fi, but will now also include QR codes to free e-books. The books in the M Subway Library are curated by the National Library…