Online publishers offer one platform for emerging writers and artists, but print remains a beguiling alternative to many readers. I think this is what appeals to me most about the Brooklyn Underground Library, an alternative publishing house created by two anonymous Williamsburg, Brooklyn artists who have struggled to find an outlet for their underground books. (more…)
Posts Tagged ‘cg’
Pass it on: Independent publishing and Brooklyn’s Underground Library
Tuesday, October 12th, 2010Remembering Roald Dahl
Monday, September 13th, 2010Today, if you didn’t already know, is Roald Dahl day. Born on 13th September 1916, this wonderful children’s writer would now be 94 years old. 94! If his last full-length work is anything to go by (Matilda, published in 1988), the old man still had plenty of story-telling juice left in him by the time he passed away in 1990.
I have a huge personal investment in Dahl, as it was his books (and his wonderful, funny poetry) I was weaned on from a young age. Not unusually for a child growing up in the north of England in the 1980s, Dahl was the first author I fell in love with. I have strong memories of leafing through those slim paperbacks, finding myself wowed by Dahl’s vivid imagination and delighted by Quentin Blake‘s enchanting drawings (Dahl and Blake are utterly inseparable in my mind). I finished James and the Giant Peach and The BFG in two days each, The Witches in one. (more…)
An arrest in Singapore
Tuesday, July 20th, 2010Time for me to climb on my soapbox. My attention this week was caught by the story of British author Alan Shadrake. The 75-year-old writer has been held by the Singaporean authorities for promoting his book on the death penalty that still exists in the country. He has been arrested for alleged criminal defamation and “other offences”, and his passport has been impounded. (more…)
iPads and Charity Shops
Tuesday, June 29th, 2010I am stood in the white, angular confines of Manchester’s Apple store, an iPad in my hands for the very first time. I’ve spent twenty minutes with Apple’s latest creation and have found it, in many ways, to be electrifying. Already I have used it to surf the web, watch a video, and now I am playing a game in which I steer a rally car through forests by simply tilting the device. I am absorbed, child-like in my wonder.
Alas, my first experience with the iPad as an e-reader would later leave me unexcited and cold. Reflections bounce from the rich, glossy screen, and the page-turning animation becomes old quickly. My arms soon begin to ache from holding it. I’m thinking too much about leaving fingerprints on that pristine surface. (more…)
