Man Booker Prize 2014 Longlist

The first Man Booker prize longlist to include American authors has divided headline writers into those who prefer “Commonwealth writers edged out” and those who have chosen “Donna Tartt snubbed”.

Of the 13 novelists on the longlist, four are American—Siri Hustvedt, Joshua Ferris, Karen Joy Fowler and Richard Powers—six are British, two are Irish and just one is a Commonwealth writer, from Australia. This means there are no Caribbean or African authors up for the award…

First awarded in 1969, the Man Booker prize was, until this year, open only to novels by writers from Britain and the Commonwealth, Ireland and Zimbabwe. At the end of 2013 entry was opened up to writers of any nationality, writing originally in English and published in Britain.

The judges considered 154 novels, of which 44 were by authors who are now eligible under the new rules. Commonwealth submissions totalled 31 this year, compared with 43 in 2013.

All the Booker Prize longlisters are below:

Man Booker prize 2014: Longlist, long faces | The Economist.

Being a Better Online Reader

Certainly, as we turn to online reading, the physiology of the reading process itself shifts; we don’t read the same way online as we do on paper. Anne Mangen, a professor at the National Centre for Reading Education and Research at the University of Stavanger, in Norway, points out that reading is always an interaction between a person and a technology, be it a computer or an e-reader or even a bound book. Reading “involves factors not usually acknowledged,” she told me. “The ergonomics, the haptics of the device itself. The tangibility of paper versus the intangibility of something digital.” The contrast of pixels, the layout of the words, the concept of scrolling versus turning a page, the physicality of a book versus the ephemerality of a screen, the ability to hyperlink and move from source to source within seconds online—all these variables translate into a different reading experience.

Being a Better Online Reader – The New Yorker.

July Book Display

Civil Rights Act of 1964July 2014 denotes the 50th Anniversary of the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

Come check out our wide range of books and DVDs concerning this historical time and  place in U.S. History