Previously: Daniel Chacón's latest short story collection, The Last Philosopher in Texas, shows how fiction and superstition often mix with reality in the lives of many Chicanos. https://www.texasobserver.org/the-chicano-time-traveler/
"The event will be held at the independent new and used book seller’s warehouse, located at 2720 N.W. 29th Ave., from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on June 1 and 2.
The book sale will feature a variety of genres, from literature to nonfiction and children’s books, at deep discounts…"
Hahahaha! Pluperfect snark — thanks for the memories. What a fresh voice! "Gideon the Ninth" was by far my favorite SF novel of its year (2019).
Thrilled to see Tamsin Muir at Boskone in 2022. Blazingly smart and funny. Though I was disappointed she didn't brandish a sword in each hand and another in her mouth during panels …
"It’s #Jewish#American Heritage Month, and what better way to celebrate our heritage than #children’s #books about #food? Because everyone, no matter what, can agree that Jewish food is the best.
These books feature diverse and surprising tales about Jewish food, from Ashkenazi classics to Asian and Mexican mash-ups."
American lexicographer, editor, and author Noah Webster died #OTD in 1843.
His early contributions to education include a series of textbooks known collectively as the "Blue-Backed Speller." His first dictionary, A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language, was published in 1806. However, his most significant achievement came with the publication of An American Dictionary of the English Language in 1828.
"Language is the expression of ideas, and if the people of one country cannot preserve an identity of ideas they cannot retain an identity of language."
A Dictionary of the English Language: Intended to Exhibit... : in Two Volumes (ed. 1832)
~Noah Webster Jr. (October 16, 1758 – May 28, 1843)
"The greater the happiness that nature sets before me, the more I lament that he is not here to taste it: the greater the bliss we might enjoy together, the more I feel our present wretchedness apart."
Helen Graham (Ch. XXV : First Absence) - The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848)
The Art of the Bird: The History of Ornithological Art through Forty Artists by Roger J. Lederer, 2019
In The Art of the Bird, devout birder and ornithologist Roger J. Lederer celebrates the heyday of avian illustration in the last four hundred years in forty artists’ profiles, beginning with the work of Flemish painter Frans Snyders in the early 1600s and continuing through to contemporary artists like Elizabeth Butterworth, famed for her portraits of macaws.
Dan Cohen and Dave Hansen wrote recently a really good piece on books, libraries and AI training (the piece refers to the paper on Books Data Commons that I co-authored).
They start with a well-known argument about levelling the field: without offering public access to training resources, AI monopolies will benefit from information asymmetries. Google already has access to 40 million scanned books.
They add to this a key point about libraries' public interest stance - and suggest that libraries could actively govern / gatekeep access to books.
This reminds me of the recent paper by Melanie Dulong de Rosnay and Yaniv Benhamou, which for me is groundbreaking - it proposes that license-based approaches to sharing are combined with trusted institutions that offer more fine-grained access governance.
So it's good to see that this line of thinking is getting traction.