Where Do People Read More?

5.48 for Spain? So, not even an hour per day, sniff.

SPRITZ: An App Changing The Way We Read?

What is spritzing?
Spritzing is reading text with Spritz Inc.’s patent-pending technology. When you’re spritzing, you’re reading text one word at a time in our “redicle,” a special visual frame we designed for reading.

The time consuming part of reading lies mainly in the actual eye movements from word to word and sentence to sentence. In addition, traditional reading simply takes up a lot of physical space. Spritz solves both of these problems. First, your eyes do not have to move from word to word or around the page that you’re reading. In fact, there’s no longer a page – with Spritz you only need 13 total characters to show all of your content. Fast streaming of text is easier and more comfortable for the reader, especially when reading areas become smaller. Spritz’s patent-pending technology can also be integrated into photos, maps, videos, and websites for more effective communication.

What do you think? Will you give it a try? Why not?

More info here.

AUSTEN… AGAIN

So here we are, new year and old authors revisited. I was surprised to see we open 2014 with a new film revisiting Jane Austen. I don't know whether it will polish or bust the myth, it looks more like the second to me, sorry. 

The film is based on a novel by Shannon Hale (who also co-wrote the screenplay with Hess) and is officially described on the author's site as follows: Jane Hayes is a seemingly normal young New Yorker, but she has a secret. Her obsession with Mr. Darcy, as played by Colin Firth in the BBC adaptation of "Pride & Prejudice," is ruining her love life: no real man can compare. But when a wealthy relative bequeaths her a trip to an English resort catering to Austen-crazed women, Jane's fantasies of meeting the perfect Regency-era gentleman suddenly become realer than she ever could have imagined.Decked out in empire-waist gowns, Jane struggles to master Regency etiquette and flirts with gardeners and gentlemen or maybe even, she suspects, with the actors who are playing them. It's all a game, Jane knows. And yet the longer she stays, the more her insecurities seem to fall away, and the more she wonders: Is she about to kick the Austen obsession for good, or could all her dreams actually culminate in a Mr. Darcy of her own?Russell will play the part of Jane with Feild playing a Darcy-impersonator who works for the resort.

On the bright side, the movie has brought back a lot of discussion about Jane Austen and her novels, which makes me really happy.

And you, austenite or not? Will you watch the movie?

Children's Books

As some of you know, I love children's books, both the content and format, with all those pictures, the rhyme, the lyricism in them… Must be the peter-panish side of me.

In any case, here are a couple of new releases that I would like to get my hands on.

This one is by Julia Donaldson, whom you may know as she is the author of The Gruffalo.

And this other one has a rhyming format, which is nice, but also, check out the illustrations - they are awesome!

Reading in Galician - FANECA BRAVA

I've just finished reading this novel, which I came across quite accidentally and it was a real pleasure to read, and a nice surprise. It is a page-turner, and I personally enjoyed Portas's skillful use of language, poetic yet dynamic. 

Here's a small extract from a review:

Trátase dunha intriga ben artellada e dunha novela coidadosamente escrita, cuxa lectura engancha e seduce. Ese coidado na escrita, que tanto se agradece, non a converte, porén, nunha lectura difícil, senón fluída e rápida a medida que se van desvelando misterios e se quere saber máis. 

And an interview with the author:

HAVISHAM - Prelude to Great Expectations

I quite enjoyed Great Expectations, and Miss Havisham was quite a disturbing character. This book by Ronald Frame presents itself as the prequel to Great Expectations.

Here's an extract from a review:

The greatest difficulty with Havisham, however, lies at the very heart of the endeavour. Frame seeks to recast Miss Havisham as a woman of flesh and blood, driven mad by heartbreak, but that is to miss the point of Dickens's creation. Miss Havisham is not an elusive ghost like Brontë's Bertha but nor is she real, as Pip is real. She is an illusion of startling intensity, like the gods of fable or the witch in a fairy story. Trapped in her mausoleum of a house, the embodiment of disillusionment and bitterness, of a life wasted and anguish turned inside out, she derives her power from her otherness. By making a real person of her, Frame is obliged not only to scale her down to human size but to explain all the awkward logistical quibbles that Dickens imperiously overlooked. In so doing, he diminishes both her majestic inhumanity and her terrible pathos, and loosens her hold over our imaginations.

The Perfume of New Books

Just when you thought that the aroma of freshly opened new books would disappear with the advent of e-book readers... Have no fear, the solution is here! For the modest price of $28.99, you can spray on the SMELL OF BOOKS anywhere. Check it out here. 

Because there's nothing like that scent of unpacking a virgin copy of a desired novel, spreading the pages for the first time and appreciating the bouquet that wafts from the pages. 

That's because paper is made from lignin which has polymers that make it smell like vanilla. Combined with fresh ink and glue, a new book becomes irresistable.

So you can rest assured that smell which you associate with opening a book for the first time won't be a thing of the past. As Nick Bilton put it in his New York Times tech blog: "I immediately felt a sense of nostalgia that I haven't felt in a long time. The scent of physical books - the paper, the ink, the glue -can conjure up memories of a summer day spent reading on a beach, a fall afternoon in a coffee shop, or an overstuffed chair by a fireplace as rain patters on a windowsill."

HOTELS and BOOKS

Remember our literary tour in New York?

It turns out the idea of hotels and books is actually catching up in other places too (Miami, London, Ireland). I hate hotels, so those which add a library or a reading room… well, it's definitely a perk, isn't it? According to this article, "… newer literary-minded hotels are establishing places for the reader and brewer to go that, in the best cases, further an understanding of the destination".

I would love to stay at Ballyfin Hotel above, for example :)

WRITING BECOMING A BROADCAST SPECTACLE

Who would be brave enough to combine writing and a reality show? Well, the Italians, of course. Here's the idea: a show in which inspiring authors vie at literary challenges until one contestant wins a major book deal - and some level of publicity.

Don't be too eager to criticize the initiative. Let's wait and see!

More info here.

DORIS LESSING DIES

Sad news today, hearing about the death of Doris Lessing. Tributes pour in for Nobel prize-winning author of over 50 novels including The Golden Notebook. Our personal homage here:

An extract of "Fable", one of her poems:

But for a while the dance went on -
That is how it seems to me now:
Slow forms moving calm through
Pools of light like gold net on the floor.
It might have gone on, dream-like, for ever.

And a short interview:

And a Guardian article:

"After 40 years of being shortlisted, Lessing at 87 was the oldest winner of the literature prize, and only the 11th female winner in its then 104-year history. What a pity, she scolded, that Virginia Woolf wasn't number four or five. The Swedish academy (which, according to Lessing, had publicly disapproved of her in the 1970s), described her as "that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny". The Golden Notebook, published 45 years before, was commended as a "pioneering work" that "belongs to the handful of books that informed the 20th-century view of the male-female relationship". Read the whole article here.

Great Book Covers Post 2

Sometimes you should judge a book by its cover.

LITERARY GRAFFITI

Check out this website where you can see 20 awesome examples of literary graffiti. Wouldn't it be awesome to have some of them in our town?

And speaking of graffiti, I love this Parisian initiative.

RUNNING AND READING

It must be that the race season is on for me, but I've been thinking a lot about Will Smith's speech on running and reading, two of my great passions in life. I know it's not too elaborate and it seems pretty simple... however I love it and it helps me build up my stamina!

“The keys to life are running and reading. When you're running, there's a little person that talks to you and says, "Oh I'm tired. My lung's about to pop. I'm so hurt. There's no way I can possibly continue." You want to quit. If you learn how to defeat that person when you're running. You will how to not quit when things get hard in your life. For reading: there have been gazillions of people that have lived before all of us. There's no new problem you could have--with your parents, with school, with a bully. There's no new problem that someone hasn't already had and written about it in a book.”

FIRST BOOK (Ribeira): Summer Lies

The first book we'll read in our book club in Ribeira will be Summer Lies, a collection of 7 short stories by Bernhard Schlink, a German author who may sound familiar to you because he is the author of Der Verleser (The Reader), a novel "about a teenager who has an affair with a woman in her 30es who suddenly vanishes but whom he meets again as a law student when visiting a trial about war crimes" (Wikipedia). The book became a bestseller both in Germany and the USA and was translated into 39 languages, including Spanish. There is also a movie (see trailer below).

This movie and book are available in our library in Ribeira if you wish to borrow them.

And about Summer Lies, here are some extracts from two reviews:


"Unlike many novelists, who use short fiction as a rest stop on the highway to longer works, Schlink seems to have lingered with these stories. Each story in “Summer Lies” has heft, solidity — even more of an accomplishment given the delicate, fleeting emotions it captures." (The NY Times)

"The stories in "Summer Lies" tell of Germans living in the present with ordinary if somewhat cerebral lives. They're all successful professionals. University professors, jurists or writers — all jobs Schlink himself has held over the years.


The best of the seven stories are powerful and deeply moving meditations on family life, love and duty. As in "The Reader," Schlink and his spare, unassuming prose mask big artistic ambitions — he's trying to untangle the complicated, contradictory ways Germans of his time have defined success and happiness."(LA Times).


The meeting to discuss the book will take place on JANUARY 15th. Happy reading!

Goodreads Web and App

For years I've been trying to find a way of discovering good new books through friends and the internet. And now, I think I've finally found it. Occasionally, I would browse the Goodreads web for reviews and related books but I never really exploited its full potential until I downloaded the related app on my android smartphone.

What a breakthrough! Besides being a wonderful tool to learn about new books, it helps you classify and remember all those books that have been in your cobwebs for years. You create shelves of books that you´ve read and those which you would like to read. Also, you can see how other goodreads members have rated the books so you don't waste your time on poorly classified stuff, while seeing what books they have on their shelves.

For me, however the greatest revelation of the app was the recommendation section, which generates a list of potentially interesting books based on your shelves. By simple clicking on the recommendation you classify it as a book to-read. Simple.

Goodreads also works as a social network, so you can join groups that discuss novels in your area of interest and you can get in touch with people (make friends) who share similar tastes.

Now the downside. In this age of diminishing privacy, one has to wonder if the things you post on the web will come back to haunt you someday, who knows? Just a word to the wise, the webpage is run by Amazon now and what better way to commercialize stock than through a book loving social network? Obviously, there is a potential monetary gain to be had, so book lovers beware!

Another drawback is the rating system, which is a great tool BUT which may dissuade you from reading great novels just because they were hated by a few. Check out the number of times a book was rated, I find the higher number of ratings, the more reliable the rating is.

So if you're interested here are the sites:

Goodreads

And the app on Playstore (there's also an Iphone app in the Apple Store).

Try it, you´ll like it.