All posts by Phil

Reading

Imagine There Are No Readers

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“What are the consequences if America becomes ‘a nation in which reading is a minority activity?‘” National Endowment for the Arts Chair Dana Gioia asks this question out of a concern that our country is discouraging reader among teenagers and young adults. He says,

We are doing a better job of teaching kids to read in elementary school. But once they enter adolescence, they fall victim to a general culture which does not encourage or reinforce reading. Because these people then read less, they read less well. Because they read less well, they do more poorly in school, in the job market and in civic life.

The Hartford Courant reports: “‘Is this a cultural apocalypse? No,’ Gioia said, but noted a paradox — while the number of books published is increasing annually, reading for pleasure is declining.”

The report appears to be weak on data for online reading, and some publishers are critical of it for that reason. If people are reading a good bit online, it may offset the study’s results. I’m interested in hearing how much we all read online too, but I don’t think that point of data would change the answer to the survey question asking how much time you spend reading anything for fun. The report claims “15-to-24-year-olds spent just 7 to 10 minutes a day voluntarily reading anything at all” in 2006, according to the Washington Post. That ain’t too good. How much texting did they do?

Fiction

Better to Speak the Language of “Once Upon a Time”

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The Jollyblogger talks about the power of story in connection with Pullman’s Golden Compass.

Christian apologists have spent years and years attempting to show the reasonableness of Christianity, and have claimed many victories. Yet the religious landscape around us suggests that whether or not we have persuaded many heads, we continue to lose ground in capturing hearts – so let me join the chorus of those who are saying that we need to learn better to speak the language of “once upon a time.”

Coffee, Tea, Drinks

Mother’s Milk Cuts Out Food Allergies

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All nutrition news must be taken with a grain of salt. Some reports don’t appear to reveal anything at all, but many just come across too strongly, that is, the headlines come across too strongly. The p-u-b-l-i-c mind should know better by now. Stand guard against reports that confirm your current beliefs, and watch for reports which may be just displays of a few researchers previously held beliefs.

Since I linked to research (not nutrition related) yesterday which I automatically rejected based on my biases, I will link to a report I can accept without question. “Breast-feeding in the first three months of life appears to help shield children from developing food allergies,” according to a presentation at the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. Sure, it does. Never doubted it.

Where’s my grain of salt?

Coffee, Tea, Drinks

Women Wait Longer for Coffee–Maybe

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Research on eight Boston coffee shops indicates female customers wait as much as 20 seconds longer than male customers for their coffee. Maybe the researchers should look outside Boston. Eight stores? Is that really enough of a sample for this conclusion?

Goofing

Eat More Oreos

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The FDA reports “that regular consumption of Oreo’s Double Stuf cookies could lead to an increased tolerance to stuf,” according to this Onion report. I’ll bet this reduces stress too. I need to head to the store.

Authors, Publishing

Authors Sue Publisher

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Mr. Holtsberry posts news that conservative authors are suing their publisher over the claim of low royalties.

Authors Jerome R. Corsi, Bill Gertz, Lt. Col. Robert (Buzz) Patterson, Joel Mowbray and Richard Miniter state that Eagle Publishing, which owns Regnery, “orchestrates and participates in a fraudulent, deceptively concealed and self-dealing scheme to divert book sales away from retail outlets and to wholly owned subsidiary organizations within the Eagle conglomerate.”

That means the authors believe the Eagle is undercutting what money they could earn from their books by distributing the books through books clubs, which they say is nothing in some cases.

I have to agree with Mr. Holtsberry on this. The authors appear to have identified a real problem, but shouldn’t this have been worked out in contract? Perhaps this situation is only a dishonorable, if that, choice by the publisher and something unforeseen by the authors. Are publishers competing with authors, or are they their compatriots? No doubt, it varies.

Authors, Non-fiction

Military History Reading

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Here’s a book you may have missed, The National Guard: An Illustrated History of America’s Citizen Soldiers by Michael Doubler and John Listman. The book notes “The Guard fought at Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill, New Orleans, First Bull Run, San Juan Hill, the Meuse-Argonne, Omaha Beach, Operation Desert Storm, and in many, many other engagements.” We owe them a lot.

On the Michael Doubler’s website, he offers a few other recommendations for history reading. Very interesting.

Authors

Teachout on Mailer

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Norman Mailer died last week at age 84. Terry Teachout reminds us why this isn’t that big a deal. “[He was] to literature what the Kennedys are to politics, a living, breathing relic of the vanished era of high hopes.”

Fiction

Stardust, Book and Film

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Pig Wot Flies tells us why Neil Gamon’s Stardust is so much better as a book than a movie. “In Gaiman’s Faerie, no-one is safe. People die, sometimes bloodily and it’s a shock when they do.” That’s one of the book’s good parts which doesn’t come through in the movie.