Tag Archives: books

September 09, 2016   Amy Bishop   Amy, diversity, inspiration, literacy, reading, teachers  
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Required Reading

In high school, I usually finished out the school year by going home with a list of required reading for my English classes the following school year. Most were typical reading assignments—Catcher in the Rye, Ethan Frome (still my least favorite book to this day), Lord of the Flies —but my junior year, my English teacher surprised me with a mix of contemporary and classics for our summer reading list. I remember reading Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer and The History of Love by Nicole Krauss that summer, as well as Heart of Darkness  by Joseph Conrad.
 
Eight years later (yes, I’m a baby), some of my teacher friends are puzzling over their assigned reading lists and wondering how they can introduce diverse and more contemporary books into their required reading. Given our discussions, this is a conversation I’ve been hearing a lot about and mulling over myself. Some other friends have said that required reading in high school and college turned them off to reading in general. I understand—to a degree—the importance of reading classics, but I do have to wonder about our staunch adherence to the Western canon—which tends to be primarily full of white male authors. Our society is rapidly diversifying and I wonder what it might do for teenagers and young adults and reading culture in general to also see literature taught in schools that reflects their experience or culture.
 
Nicholson Baker’s article in the New York Times Magazine was an interesting read that ties into this conversation. He writes that, “All teaching takes a toll on what’s taught, but high school is wondrously efficient at making interesting things dull.” I slogged throughEthan Fromeas a sophomore in high school, but loved the more contemporary Foer that I was assigned junior year—I had never encountered writing quite like that before. There are so many things available that could spark a love of reading past the classroom, which can help raise reading assessment scores, among other things.
 
One of my friends who works for Teach for America shared that his high school kids were reading at a way lower level than they should be, with no school library, and only the curriculum reading to really foster their reading habits. He gave one girl the first Harry Potter book and she fell in love. Since then, he’s been giving her books from his personal stash at home, and she’s been devouring them. She told him she never knew reading could be fun.
 
What benefits do you think introducing more contemporary or diverse literature into classrooms could have? What is something you wish you’d read in high school? What books are, in your opinion, integral to the high school reading list?
August 26, 2016   Amy Bishop   Amy, culture, fall fiction, recommendations  
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I’m in the mood for…

If you’re like me, I’m starting to think longingly about fall—nestling into soft sweaters and scarves, brisk temperatures, and the explosion of pumpkin that seems to accompany autumn. It also signals a new wave of books, TV shows, and movies that many of us have been eagerly waiting for all summer. With the new wealth of things available to lose yourself in, it can seem overwhelming. I’ve noticed that since moving to NYC, I’ve found myself in a mad dash to try and keep up with pop culture and just…culture in general. As a newbie to the publishing industry, there’s so much to learn and so much to read. I’ve subscribed to a few literary/publishing industry newsletters, try and read Publishers Weekly and Publishers Lunch fairly religiously, I’ve dipped a tentative toe into the podcast waters, and I have constant running fines at the New York Public Library.  However, when it comes to movies and TV shows, I’m totally out of my element. And with all the suggestions flooding in from various sources, it can be tough to figure out exactly what you want to spend your time immersed in.

Thankfully, for the film/TV illiterate like me, Vulture has released a fall entertainment generator, which they describe as, “an interactive guide to this season’s 306 best offerings” for books, movies, TV shows, theatre, art, and music. You pick what you’re in the mood for and how you want it to make you feel, and it spits out a list of recommendations for you to choose from. I’m excited to see what it might steer me towards in the ever-busy autumn months! I’ve already got a fall reading list going, but am always looking for new recommendations.

Where do you get your book recommendations from? How do you get your daily dose of culture? What makes one book or movie stand out to you from a list?

July 01, 2016   Amy Bishop   Amy, books, children's books, collaborations, creativity, reading  
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Animals & Reading

My heart was recently broken this week by this HuffPost article that announced that Browser, the resident library cat of White Settlement Public Library in Texas was being evicted by the city council. He’s lived in the library for over five years (first brought in to help with a mouse problem). Although Browser doesn’t serve an educational purpose, he’s clearly become a fixture in the community—a petition had over 600 signatures to keep Browser in the library—and it got me thinking about the ways that animals can be involved in our reading experiences. Whether it’s your cat obstinately sitting across your book or a dog draped across your feet as you read, many of us have had the company of our pets as we peruse a book. I was pleasantly surprised to find that animals are involved with reading all over the place, with positive benefits for all parties involved.

LOOK AT THAT FACE. And his BOWTIE.

Take, for instance, the Reading with Rover program, sponsored by Animal Friends in Pittsburgh. Shy or struggling readers in grades one through three practice their reading skills by reading out loud to dogs. ARF! is another program sponsored by All for Animals, with a similar idea, for kids grades K-6. On the flip side, one Humane Society in Missouri has started the Shelter Buddies Reading Program, where kids 6-15 can sign up to read to shy or fearful dogs in the shelter and undergo a 10 hour training program. The program director says it helps give the dogs social interaction (which can help them get adopted faster), without pushing physical interaction upon them; young readers simply sit outside their kennel and read aloud. The New Hampshire SPCA also has a similar program.

If there had been something like this in my neighborhood as a kid, I totally would have volunteered. I think it’s a lovely measure that has advantages for everyone involved and one that’s hopefully instilling pleasant and positive memories in young readers who participate! I’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter!

February 26, 2016   Amy Bishop   Amy, libraries, literacy, old book smell  
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Keeping Libraries Open

Libraries have always been my sacred ground. I can still remember the tiny public library of my childhood, which I proceeded to read from end to end between the ages of four and twelve and the grander, newly renovated Frederick Public Library with a sweeping spiral staircase, bright patterned carpeting in the children’s section, and new checkout machines that you scanned your library card and then your books at. 

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So it’s saddened me to read article after article about libraries closing over the years. And although many articles concerning the closing of public libraries advocate to keep their doors open for the benefit of the community, it still doesn’t seem to be helping. Funding is being yanked from them right and left, forcing closures all across the country. Libraries are often viewed as the heart of a community, providing reading and research space, countless resources, and can often help foster literacy and computer training. I wonder what the average taxpayer (and sometimes library-goer) can do to help support public facilities like this, which add value to a community.

How do you feel about libraries closing? How many of you regularly use a library? Has your library done anything creative lately to foster more relationships with the community?

January 15, 2016   Amy Bishop   Amy, guilty pleasures  
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Reading in Bars (and other places too)

During my senior seminar class in college, one of the guest speakers mentioned that his favorite spot to read was a bar. Hmm, I thought. Reading in a bar. Seems awfully distracting.  But this summer, I tried it. I’ve newly started carrying a book around with me everywhere I go—something that was habit all the way up through high school, and then when I got to college, fell by the wayside. There were too many other things for me to be carrying around in my bags and spare moments between class, extracurriculars, and social time were few and far between.

I went to a bar I’d wanted to try, ordered a drink, and sat the very end of the bar and started reading Paradise by Toni Morrison. Oddly, the background noise was soothing instead of distracting, I mindlessly munched on bar snacks, and an hour later, paid my bill and went home, having finished a good chunk of my book. Since then, I’ve tried to get to bars or restaurants a little early if I’m meeting friends—for the sole purpose of whipping out whatever book I’m currently reading and getting another chapter further.

Where are your favorite, odd places to read? What’s the best atmosphere for you to read in? (For more Friday fun, check out this Instagram that documents some great subway reading. And anyone under 21 who’s reading this, don’t try this until you’re of legal age, please.)

December 18, 2015   Amy Bishop   Amy, reading, winter  
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‘Tis the season to read & read & read

Because I don’t do enough reading as it is, I’ve already started compiling my holiday reading list for our winter break. I have a bad habit of squirreling books away in various corners of my office and apartment all mentally marked “to read later,” but never really quite getting to them. But I’m going home to my quiet rural town for six days (!) and what else is a girl going to do but read?

On my list:

  • UNBECOMING by Rebecca Scherm

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  • THE LAKE HOUSE by Kate Morton

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  • THE JAPANESE LOVER by Isabel Allende

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  • YES PLEASE by Amy Poehler (this has been on my list since last summer, embarrassingly enough)

yes please

  • ORDINARY LIGHT by Tracy K. Smith

ordinary light

What’s on your list? Any books you’re looking forward to pick up in the New Year? 

Let nothing stand in the way of your holiday reading. Taking some tips from this bun.

December 04, 2015   Amy Bishop   Amy, buzz, holidays, lists  
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Book Lists

I’ve never experienced the holiday season in NYC and it’s been one of the things I’ve been looking forward to ever since moving downstate. Despite the temperatures remaining unseasonably warm, it seems that holiday cheer is in full swing. There’s nothing I love more than walking out of work and through the Christmas market in Union Square to get to the subway—all glow and promise. Christmas trees are being sold, signs are aglitter advertising gifts, and a street I walk down fairly regularly has wreathed their trees in holiday lights.

This time of year also always heralds the “Best Books of 2015” in all their varying forms and can provide a great holiday reading list for those quiet moments you can snatch away! (And for those of us who still have time to read copiously, it’s always very satisfying to go down a list and check off the ones we’ve read.)

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The New York Times released their list—“The 10 Best Books of 2015” yesterday. GoodReads, The Washington Post, and The Huffington Post among others, have released their choices as well. (Congratulations to Mary Doria Russell, whose EPITAPH made The Washington Post list and to Colleen Hoover, whose CONFESS was the best in the GoodReads Romance genre!)

However, “Best ___ of 2015”  can sometimes turn into a rabbit hole of fiction, non-fiction, young adult, and other genre specific lists. Which lists do you always look at? Do you pull some of your holiday reading from these lists?

October 27, 2015   Kemi Faderin   reading, teachers, YA  
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First Post!!

Hello DGLM blog readers!! I’m so excited to be the new financials and sub rights assistant here at DGLM, and I look forward to lending my voice to discussions about books, reading, and writing! Because this is my very first post, I thought I would share a little more about myself and tell you all about how I got to be here at DGLM–the road to the industry, you could say.

All of us have that one book that hooked us and refused to let us go. For some of us, it happened early (for a good friend of mine it was Junie B. Jones when she was 8), others find their book much later in life. It doesn’t really matter when, but that one book makes you who you are today. Mine came to me when I was thirteen and was just about to leave the heartache that was middle school. My father had just passed away that previous summer, and I was trying to make sense out of nothing.

In the middle of May, my 8th grade reading teacher assigned the last book of the year: The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. Instead of shoving the book into my backpack, like I had done all the others, I stared at the cover with surprising interest. The faces of four young boys stared back at me, and each one of them looked so lost- very much like how I felt. I decided to start reading it on the bus ride home, and before I knew it, it was bedtime and I had read past the assigned homework page.

By the end of the week I was finished.

My teacher was very impressed, mostly because I had never shown any interest in reading before. She gave me another book of Hinton’s, That Was Then… This Is Now. I ate that up, too. She continued to give me Hinton’s books to read until the last day of school, when she gave me her copy of Tex to keep. That summer, I found myself wanting to imitate Hinton. I think I wrote about six short stories, none of them any good, but I’ve kept them all as a reminder of the moment I made sense out of nothing. I started going to the public library, and when high school came around, I sometimes skipped lunch to hang out at the school library to read and write.

I’m not sure what it was about The Outsiders that got me. Maybe it was the instant connection I had with Ponyboy, because he, too, had lost a parent (both actually). All I know for a fact is that there was a magical instant that day in May when I had unconsciously chosen my path; somewhere between “Paul Newman… and a ride home.”

So, what about you? What book made a serious reader out of you, and when did you find it?

 

 

October 23, 2015   Amy Bishop   audience, bestsellers, buzz, culture  
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The Sticking Power of Harry Potter

 

My Twitter and Facebook feeds have blown up with the announcement that the new West End play, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, was going to be “a full–blown sequel” to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Eighteen years after Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone was published, the Harry Potter fandom (which my generation was raised on) is still going strong. I’ve heard many accounts of parents saying that this was the book that finally got their kids to read and even friends who said they weren’t big readers until they discovered the Harry Potter series.

cursed-child

I remember many people being disappointed when they turned eleven and hadn’t received their letter from Hogwarts. The rush to every midnight premiere of a Harry Potter movie was insane and Pottermore is still going strong. Clearly, all these years later, we’re still enchanted by Harry, Ron, Hermione, and the promise of Hogwarts.

So I’m wondering: what makes a book this universally powerful? And even more so: what creates the staying power of a book through generations? What do you think, dear readers?

 

September 01, 2015   Amy Bishop   children's books, debate, e-books, millennials, problem solving, reading  
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Reaching A Younger Generation of Readers

This past spring, a few English majors from my college (including me) got the opportunity to have lunch with M. NourbeSe Philip, a Canadian poet and writer of all genres, and she asked the small group around her, “Do children still read books?” By books, she meant hard copy books, not digital versions. As some diehard English majors are wont to do, the table exploded in reassurances that yes, hard copy books were still very much present and who reads off Kindles/Nooks/iPads anyway? From there, we embarked on a cultural and social discussion about the importance of children holding a book in their hands, why hard copy books will probably always exist., etc.

Four months later, I started babysitting for a charming family who moved to NYC from Hong Kong with two gems of boys. (I’ve honestly never seen better behaved children in my life and they do homework when asked to without much griping. A dream!) My main reason for being there—other than giving their mom a break—is to get them to try and read more. Their mom mentioned with a wry grin that they prefer using the iPad or computer to picking up a book, and do you think you could install a love of reading in them, please?

ipad-ereaders

As a kid who didn’t have access to digital reading, I’m a hard copy book reader myself. But I’ve found myself reading manuscripts on my iPad because those are digital and it’s a matter of convenience. The majority of people I know who are big readers have some kind of digital reading device. And last summer, I had a conversation with an agent at another literary agency about audiobooks and how to reach a wider, more digitally driven audience. “Certain demographics,” he said, “aren’t going to pick up a book. They’re going to be plugged in. How do we reach them?”

I think I’m going to bring my small charges to the Strand and turn them loose. I’m hoping that being surrounded by books will get them excited to choose a book to bring home. (So yeah, it’s a little bit of bribery, but you know. Babysitting is half bribery, to be honest.) Fingers crossed that somehow in my time with them, they start being enchanted by books they can hold and smell and turn pages in.

So that being said: any suggestions for books for active boys around ages 5 and 7 who love soccer, Legos, and have lived in two countries already?

Any predictions on how kids will be reading in ten, fifteen, twenty years?

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