Washington Square North, Nov. 2, 2013.
At Slate, David Rosenberg offers proof that New Yorkers will read absolutely anywhere by examing the work of photographer Lawrence Schwartzwald, who started a prolific series of people reading.
All of the images were taken spontaneously, apart from some of the celebrities he has seen reading.
See all the photos HERE
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I’ll be giving a reading in Seattle this Thursday evening and I’d love to see you there if you are within driving distance…
or have your own a private jet, of course.
WHO: Alma Alexander (me)
WHEN: Thursday, March 19, 7 p,m.
WHERE: University Book Store, U District, 4326 University Way NE, Seattle
WHAT: Reading and book signing
“There are werewolf stories and there are high school stories. Then there’s Alma Alexander’s new YA fantasy series The Were Chronicles. Set in a world of changelings as diverse as the many different creatures they can turn into. Strict regulation, isolation, and discrimination keep Weres always one notch below the normals they share the world with. And when Jazz—a teenage Random whose form is not completely fixed every Turn—uncovers startling secrets about her sister’s death, what begins is a complex and gripping story about family, culture, race and rebellion that will stay with you long after you turn its last page. Join us for a reading and signing, Alexander will share her brave new work, and maybe even spill a few secrets about what we can look forward to next!”
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How Genre Fiction Became More Important Than Literary Fiction
The book war is over, Stephen Marche writes in Esquire, the aliens, dragons, and detectives won.
The forms of genre—science fiction, fantasy, the hardboiled detective story, the murder mystery, horror, vampire, and werewolf stories—have become the natural homes for the most serious literary questions, he writes.
Only idiots or snobs ever really thought less of ‘genre books’ of course. There are stupid books and there are smart books. There are well-written books and badly written books. There are fun books and boring books. All of these distinctions are vastly more important than the distinction between the literary and the non-literary.
Time has a tendency to demolish old snobberies. Once upon a time, Conan Doyle was embarrassed by the Sherlock Holmes stories; he wanted to be remembered for his serious historical novels.
Read the whole article HERE
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Doctor Who takes the Bechdel Test
Blogger Sarah Barrett watched all 117 episodes of modern-day Doctor Who and analyzed how many passed the Bechdel Test which asks if a work of fiction features at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man.
Turns out that 96 pass the Bechdel Test, giving Doctor Who an overall pass rate of… 80%! That strikes me as not bad, but not outstanding either, for a show that has so many female main characters. I give you a B+, Doctor Who. I know you can do better.
Infographic
See the story and full infographic HERE
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Extraordinary photos from NASA
NASA continues to blow our minds, Answers.com says, with photos of the vast unknown corners of space. From far away galaxies to our familiar Man in the Moon, these photos will show you things that are hard to fathom as realistic.
Whirlpool Galaxy: A spiral galaxy like our Milky Way, but is located about 30 million light-years from Earth. The photo combines X-ray wavelengths (purple), with ultraviolet (blue), visible light (green) and infrared light (red). A spectacular image to leave us astounded.
See all the photos HERE
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Author says Colonizing Mars Won’t Be As Easy As He Thought
Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy filled us all with hope that we could terraform Mars in the 21st century, Charlie Jane Anders writes at io9. But in the face of what we’ve learned about Mars in the past 20 years, the author no longer thinks it’ll be that easy.
Robinson explains that his ideas about terraforming Mars, back in the 1990s, were based on three assumptions that have been called into question or disproved:
See the rest of the story HERE
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Huge ocean confirmed underneath solar system’s largest moon
Ganymede’s magnetic field
The solar system’s largest moon, Ganymede, in orbit around Jupiter, harbors an underground ocean containing more water than all the oceans on Earth, Eric Hand reports in Science.
Ganymede now joins Jupiter’s Europa and two moons of Saturn, Titan and Enceladus, as moons with subsurface oceans—and good places to look for life.
Read the article HERE
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THIS ‘n THAT
If there’s one thing that every human on this earth has in common, it is that, at some point, we will have to deal with death, Elisabeth Donnelly writes at Flavorwire. She offers 25 books that look straight into the face of death and reveal something new about what it’s like to be alive, saddled with that knowledge that someday, we and our loved ones will die.
See all the books HERE
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Vertical Forest: An Urban Treehouse That Protect Residents from Air and Noise Pollution
Apartment building in Turin, Italy – © Beppe Giardino
Read the story HERE
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Quote of the Day
“Do not read as children do to enjoy themselves… read to live.” ~ Gustave Flaubert
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