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Why children’s books that teach diversity are more important than ever

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BJ Epstein, University of East Anglia

If you think back to your childhood, what sticks with you? For many people, it’s those cosy times when they were cuddled up with a parent or grandparent, being read a story.

But bedtime stories aren’t just lovely endings to the day or a way to induce sleep, they are also a safe way to experience and discuss all sorts of feelings and situations. So even when children think they’re just being told about an adorable bunny’s adventures, they are actually learning about the world around them.

We know that children’s books can act like both mirrors and windows on the world. Mirrors in that they can reflect on children’s own lives, and windows in that they can give children a chance to learn about someone else’s life. We also know that this type of self-reflection and opportunity to read or hear about different lives is essential for young people.

Research on prejudice shows that coming in contact with people who are different – so-called “others” – helps to reduce stereotypes. This is because when we see people who initially seem different, we learn about them and get closer to them through their story. The “other” seems less far away and, well, less “otherly”.

But while it may be ideal for children to actually meet people from different backgrounds in person, if that isn’t possible, books can serve as a first introduction to an outside world.

Representing the world

Despite knowing how important it is for diversity to be represented in our day-to-day lives, many children’s books are still littered with white, male, able-bodied, heterosexual, cisgender, nominally Christian characters. And research suggests that over 80% of characters in children’s books are white – which clearly doesn’t reflect the reality of our world.

All of these reasons are why the We Need Diverse Books movement was set in motion in 2014, stemming from a discussion between children’s books authors Ellen Oh and Malinda Lo. The movement aims for more diverse children’s books to actually be created and for these works to be available to young people. And while we need people to actually write them, we also need publishers to produce them, and bookstores, libraries, and schools to stock them.

Getting diverse books into the hands of young readers.
Pexels.

As someone who researches children’s literature, I think we’d have fewer conflicts in the world if we all read more diverse literature and lived more diverse lives.

I like to think that if we had more diverse children’s books, featuring a broad range of characters in many different jobs and situations, as well as more diverse role models in the media, young people would feel empowered, and they’d believe that when they grow up, they could be anyone and do anything they wanted. And they’d look at their friends and think the same for them, and they’d grow up respecting and appreciating everyone’s talents.

With this mindset present, issues such as race or religion wouldn’t even play a subconscious role. And it would mean that within a generation or two, we wouldn’t read articles about appalling and depressing statistics, and we wouldn’t need campaigns to increase diversity in literature, academia, or anywhere else.

Role models

But books aren’t just about “others”. When we see people like ourselves in the media, including in fiction, we get a glimpse of who we might become, and we feel validated. We can gain role models and inspiration through literature.

Perhaps partly in response to people’s growing awareness of the need for role models – whether in person or in literature – one young black girl, Marley Dias, started a campaign to find 1,000 “black girl books”. Dias recommends works such as Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson, One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia, Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson and I Love My Hair by Natasha Anastasia Tarpley.

But I wonder how many of those “black girl books” feature black girls in prominent roles, such as working as professors, doctors, teachers, or even as presidents of nations. I have a suspicion that the percentage would be disappointingly low.

Wanted: diverse role models.
Shutterstock

Just featuring a minority character isn’t enough to create quality diverse literature, but it is a first step. And while there are some useful websites that recommend diverse children’s books and even literary awards dedicated to promoting such works, much still needs to be done.

Along with the increased worries today about immigrants, refugees, and general “otherness”, some societies seem to be headed towards a sense of false nostalgia about a time when the world was controlled by whites.

Given this is not how the world is or should be, we owe it to young readers to show them reality in the books they’re reading. Perhaps then the next generation will be less frightened of the “other” if they get to meet them and learn about them from an early age.

The Conversation

BJ Epstein, Senior Lecturer in Literature and Public Engagement, University of East Anglia

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Fiction by Northern Irish women is booming – leading the way against misogyny

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Caroline Magennis, University of Salford

Arlene Foster, the first minister of Northern Ireland, faced calls to resign over the “RHI scandal”, a renewable energy incentive scheme which failed. Allegations of mismanagement cost the public purse almost £500m. Foster labelled the pressure for her resignation “misogynistic” and suggested that a man in a similar position might not face such opprobrium.

Doubtless, much of the language aimed at female politicians has a deeply sexist dimension, but writers were quick to point out in the New Statesman, The Belfast Telegraph and The Irish News that Foster’s own Democratic Unionist Party has an ingrained culture that fosters inequality.

There is an acute lack of female voices in Northern Irish politics, undoubtedly a legacy of decades of militarised conflict, that has left the region with the lowest amount of women of the devolved parliaments. Of the 18 MPs for the region, only two are female. But the recent appointments of Michelle O’Neill (Sinn Féin) and Naomi Long (Alliance) to lead their respective parties suggest things might be slowly, gradually beginning to change.

Short stories new and old

This lack of political representation is mirrored in the arts where, for years, women were anthologised and written about as exceptional cases in a literature that was overwhelmingly concerned with literary responses to violent events. In her pivotal work, The Living Stream (1994), Edna Longley detailed the distinctly male atmosphere that hangs over Irish literary coteries. But, as with the political changes noted, women’s voices are increasingly being heard in this sphere, too.

Generations of female novelists have written about Northern Ireland since its inception but have been largely ignored. This writing spans genres and all shades of political opinion since the 1920s, and has offered glimpses into lives that rarely make the evening news. Janet McNeill wrote a number of significant novels in the 1960s which capture this “in-between” period with a sharp, sympathetic eye for the dissatisfaction of some women with home and hearth. The reissuing of her novels The Small Widow, As Strangers Here and The Maiden Dinosaur show a continue appetite for and relevance of her novels.

But despite this history, 2016 was a landmark year for Northern Irish women’s fiction – short fiction, in particular. It saw the digital reissue of the vital anthology The Female Line (1985) and the publication of Sinéad Gleeson’s award-winning collection The Glass Shore, which features both classic stories and newly commissioned work from some of the north’s most vital writers. 2016 also saw new collections of stories from Lucy Caldwell (Multitudes), Jan Carson (Children’s Children) and Roisin O’Donnell (Wild Quiet).

Fictional responses

Northern Irish fiction has often been criticised for relying on realism and not being as formally experimental as its United Kingdom or US counterparts. But recently, women have been leading the way in offering depictions of Northern Ireland that are ripe for critical speculation.

The work of Jan Carson, in particular, is marked by a playful, experimental sensibility as her writing plays with the possibilities of the short story genre. Her strange, deft prose is a much-needed counterpoint to the wealth of weighty Troubles tones. An equal tonic is Roisin O’Donnell’s magical work, which spans continents and species to continually surprise and delight. Bernie McGill’s sensual, visceral writing brings the body back into Northern Irish writing in her painful, beautiful writing.

And Lucy Caldwell has never been afraid to write about complicated topics, such as the Troubles and mental health (Where They Were Missed, 2006), missionary work and sexuality in the Middle East (The Meeting Point, 2011) and double lives (All the Beggars Riding, 2013). Her recent short fiction has seen this impulse continue, as she directly confronts the taboos of “post”-conflict Northern Irish society, such as racism, abortion and homosexuality.

Northern Irish women’s voices have been largely overlooked by critics and readers in favour of novels and short stories which centred male experiences of being perpetrators and victims of violence. But the new political moment has cleared space for new fictional representations.

Looking forward

Looking to the future, there are several exciting works for 2017. Following her heart-wrenching debut, Ghost Moth (2013), Michele Forbes will publish Edith and Oliver in March 2017. And the scapel-like wit of June Caldwell can be revisited in Room Little Darker, published later this year. We await new work from the women featured in The Glass Shore across genres and forms.

If all you know of Northern Ireland is the turmoil of political institutions, you could do worse than to pick up some of this fiction. For decades, Northern Irish women have been writing about their lives with bravery and skill but they have also been imagining different worlds and stretching their imaginations in the most trying of circumstances. To see these generations of women continue to resist established ways of writing and thinking has been galvanising as we seek to find stories outside of the standard narratives of truth and recovery.

This writing does not simply conform to the Troubles narrative so often replicated in fiction and film. Rather, it challenges it, sometimes directly, but often in subtle, wry acts of fictional insubordination.

The Conversation

Caroline Magennis, Lecturer in 20th and 21st Century Literature, University of Salford

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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How to Read More

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The link below is to an article that looks at how to read more – in fact, how to read 200 books a year.

For more visit:
https://qz.com/895101/in-the-time-you-spend-on-social-media-each-year-you-could-read-200-books/

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To the mattresses: a defence of romance fiction

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Elizabeth Reid Boyd, Edith Cowan University

Taking up a sheet of paper, he propped it against the easel. With a stick of charcoal in his hand, he flexed his muscled arm, and began to make strong, bold strokes, glancing back and forth at her all the while. She became transfixed by the way he held her in his sights, put his head down to draw, then came intently back up again, in a single movement, like a breath…

You think you’re watching me, Mr Benedict Cole, when in fact I’m watching you. She smiled inwardly.

~Enticing Benedict Cole: Eliza Redgold

There are not many literary genres as loved and loathed as romance fiction. For all its millions of female readers for hundreds of years, it’s been dismissed as sentimental, sappy and trashy, as well as mad, bad and dangerous to read. Yet romance fiction, written by women, published by women, read by women, and researched by women, remains one of the most popular and powerful genres on the planet.


goodreads

I’m a romantic academic. I teach and research in gender studies. Under my pen name, Eliza Redgold, I also write romance novels, published by Harlequin (Mills and Boon).

Romance novels and I began as childhood sweethearts. I didn’t know they were a form of fairy tales, but they worked magic on me. In my twenties I flirted with romance fiction, but we drifted apart. My desire re-emerged when women’s studies, my adored discipline, fragmented in the academy.

I sought solace and attended my first romance writing conference. To my surprise, the scene was all too familiar: predominantly female participants and presenters, a collaborative leadership model, a supportive atmosphere, and lots of violet.

The rest is herstory. I progressed with my purple prose and discovered that the romance writing landscape had changed – roles and rules were being broken as women were engaged in reshaping the genre, along with a concurrent rise of “love studies” that emerged in the wake of women’s studies.

Romance brought me back to academia, full circle. In retrospect, this sounds unproblematic. In truth, the relationship between the two brought me face to face with my pride, and prejudices.

Trashing the genre and gendering the trash

Her skin rippled as his all-encompassing artist’s gaze lingered over her. “Let me just say the painting will be somewhat – revealing. It will not merely be of your face; what I have in mind will require I make a study of … your form.”

“I see.” Her stomach gave another of those mysterious lurches. “To what extent would my … form … be displayed?”

Because I call myself both a feminist and a romantic doesn’t mean they are two hearts beating as one.

Romance has represented a dilemma. Scholars including Germaine Greer have considered it a form of deception that deliberately prevented women from recognizing their oppressed and subordinate roles in patriarchal society. Tania Modleski dubbed it mass-produced fantasy.

Still, postmodernists such as Diane Elam have emphasized its subversive nature.
Val Derbyshire of Sheffield University recently argued that Mills and Boon romances deserve literary attention as feminist texts. And Anja Hirdman writes that Harlequin

seems nowadays to construct a feminine viewing position once thought not to exist at all. Harlequin narratives produce a mix of femininity, desire and power by simultaneously using the familiar formula and making it unfamiliar, by re-writing its gendered implications and by turning the gaze around.

This is not without personal and political challenges. In a Gender and Society journal article entitled Sneers and Leers, Jennifer Lois and Joanne Gregson describe how outsiders apply stigma to romance writers in two ways “by conveying blatant disapproval through “sneering” and inviting writers to display a highly sexualized self through “leering.”

Writers interpreted outsiders’ sneering as slut-shaming rhetoric and responded discursively to manage the stigma; leering, however, sent a more complicated message that was harder for writers to manage.


Goodreads

I spent the publication day of my first romance novel, in 2013, in a darkened room.

It wasn’t possible to pretend I wrote it by accident, mistake, in irony, or to put it down to research. There are many things a woman can fake, but you can’t fake a Mills and Boon.

But consistency, wrote Emerson, is the hobgoblin of little minds. As I lay on my bed, dichotomies and dualisms crowded in – Bad/Good, Feminism/Femininity, Sexuality/Spirituality, Naughty/Nice – forcing me to confront my own freedoms, limitations, inconsistencies and desires, in the confines of my life and the page.

In an academic context, I made no attempt to hide my double identity, but wondered (a.ka. worried) whether the reaction might be disapproval. My expectations were confounded: most were supportive. “I’ve been reading the wrong genre,” said one female colleague. I also couldn’t predict responses based on gender – while a couple of female colleagues rolled their eyes, some male colleagues proved helpful. In turn, being a romance writer has informed my work as an academic.

Why do I write romance? Today, I can better answer that question. For the pleasure of readers, and my own. To reclaim my body. To explore my emotions. To expand my mind.

Once more unto the breeches: embracing the fight for love

He stood up and pulled her into his fierce embrace. The feel of him, the strength of his powerful arms, would be home to her now. Deep within her, she knew he would hold her like this for the rest of her life, his kiss, sure and loving; never to fade.

In a world where women’s rights are under attack, it may seem that romance novels might be slapped again with a warning label. In a sea of pink pussy hats, does purple prose have a female part?

Freedom is created when we are liberated from oppressive thought. This is the most powerful freedom of all. It allows us to create new ways of thinking, being, knowing, speaking, writing, and belonging, of loving, and new kinds of relationships. Every act of bravery encourages another, whether it’s made standing up, marching, sitting-in, or lying down.

Romance novels in a Filipino supermarket.
Arlen/flickr, CC BY

Romance fiction invites us to constantly recreate a language of love. It is the not yet said, not yet imagined relationship between and among women and men.

How do we create this language? We try something old, something new. We write. We revise. We share our sameness, delight in our difference. We philosophize, we ponder, we laugh, we discuss, we converse, we explore. We honour our bodies; we divine our souls. We stand beside. We turn to each other.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

In solidarity. With love.

The Conversation

Elizabeth Reid Boyd, Senior Lecturer School of Arts and Humanities, Edith Cowan University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Goodreads Adds Rereading

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The links below are to articles that look at the new rereading feature added to Goodreads – something which I also felt was a major missing feature for the platform. Great to see it added.

For more visit:
– https://www.goodreads.com/blog/show/817-rereading-is-here-let-s-say-it-again-rereading-is-here
– http://the-digital-reader.com/2017/02/12/goodreads-users-can-now-track-books-theyre-re-reading/

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How Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace’ can inspire those who fear Trump’s America

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Ani Kokobobo, University of Kansas

As a professor of Russian literature, I couldn’t help but notice that comedian Aziz Ansari was inadvertently channeling novelist Leo Tolstoy when he claimed that “change doesn’t come from presidents” but from “large groups of angry people.”

In one of his greatest novels, “War and Peace” (1869), Tolstoy insists that history is propelled forward not by the actions of individual leaders but by the random alignment of events and communities of people.

The unexpected electoral victory of Donald Trump last November was a political surprise of seismic proportions, shocking pollsters and pundits alike. Myriad explanations have been provided. Few are conclusive. But for those who disagree with his policies and feel powerless as this uncertain moment unfolds, Tolstoy’s epic novel can offer a helpful perspective.

The illusory power of an egomaniacal invader

Set between 1805 and 1817 – during Napoleon’s invasion of Russia and its immediate aftermath – “War and Peace” depicts a nation in crisis. As Napoleon invades Russia, massive casualties are accompanied by social and institutional breakdown. But readers also see everyday Russian life, with its romances, basic joys and anxieties.

Tolstoy looks at events from a historical distance, exploring the motivations of the destructive invasion – and for Russia’s eventual victory, despite Napoleon’s superior military strength.

Tolstoy clearly loathes Napoleon. He presents the great emperor as an egomaniacal, petulant child who views himself as the center of the world and a conqueror of nations. Out of touch with reality, Napoleon is so certain of his personal greatness that he assumes everyone must either be a supporter or take pleasure in his victories. In one of the novel’s most satisfying moments, the narcissistic emperor enters the gates of conquered Moscow expecting a royal welcome, only to discover that the inhabitants have fled and refuse to pledge allegiance.

Meanwhile, the heart of a novel about one of Russia’s greatest military victories does not rest with Napoleon, Tsar Alexander I or the army commander, General Kutuzov. Instead, it rests with a simple, loving peasant named Platon Karataev who is sent to fight the French against his will.

But even though Platon has little control over his situation, he has a greater ability to touch others than the authoritarian Napoleon, who only sets a pernicious example. For example, Platon offers the motherless hero, Pierre Bezukhov, an almost feminine and maternal kindness and shows him that the answer to his spiritual searching lies not in glory and blistering speeches but in human connection and our inherent connectivity. Pierre soon has a dream about a globe, in which every person represents a tiny droplet temporarily detached from a larger sphere of water. Signifying our shared essence, it hints at the extent to which Tolstoy believed we are all connected.

The case of Platon and his spiritual power is only one example of the grassroots power of individuals in “War and Peace.” At other times, Tolstoy shows how individual soldiers can make more of a difference in the battlefield by reacting quickly to the circumstances than generals or emperors. Events are decided in the heat of the moment. By the time couriers return to Napoleon – and he boldly reasserts his conquering vision – the chaos of battle has already shifted in a new direction. He is too removed from the real lives of soldiers – and, implicitly, people – to really drive the course of history.

In depicting Napoleon’s campaign this way, Tolstoy seems to reject Thomas Carlyle’s “Great Man” theory of history – the idea that events are driven by the will of extraordinary leaders. Tolstoy, in contrast, insists that when privileging extraordinary figures, we ignore the vast, grassroots strength of ordinary individuals.

In a sense, this vision of history is appropriate for a novelist. Novels often focus on ordinary people who don’t make it into the history books. Nonetheless, to the novelist, their lives and dreams possess a power and value equal to those of “great men.” In this dynamic, there are no conquerors, heroes or saviors; there are simply people with the power to save themselves, or not.

So in Tolstoy’s view, it is not Napoleon who determines the course of history; rather, it’s the elusive spirit of the people, that moment when individuals almost inadvertently come together in shared purpose. On the other hand, kings are slaves to history, only powerful when they’re able to channel this sort of collective spirit. Napoleon often thinks he is issuing bold orders, but Tolstoy shows the emperor is merely engaging in the performance of power.

A united, public opposition

All of these ideas are relevant today, when many who did not vote for President Trump are concerned about how his campaign rhetoric is shaping his presidency and the country.

Obviously, the president of the United States has tremendous power. But here is where “War and Peace” can provide some perspective, helping to demystify this power and sort out its more performative aspects.

There’s quite a bit of action coming from the White House, with President Trump furiously signing one executive order after another before the cameras. It’s hard to say how many of these executive orders can go into immediate effect right away. Many – like the recent ban on immigrants from seven Muslim majority countries – are certainly affecting lives. But others will also require legislative and institutional support. We hear every day about government workers and departments, mayors and governors vowing not to follow President Trump’s orders.

While those who oppose Trump might not have philosopher peasants like Platon Karataev at their disposal, mass marches and protests broadcast united opposition – as do all the petitions, safety pins, pink pussy hats and rogue tweets. Some of this might be derided as #slacktivism. But collectively they map out tenuous networks of connections among individuals.

Thinking in essentialist terms, Tolstoy felt that Napoleon failed to destroy Russia because the collective interests of Russian people aligned against him: a majority of people – wittingly or unwittingly – acted to undermine his agenda. Is it possible that we will see a similar alignment of grassroots interests now? Could men, women, people of color, immigrants and LGBTQIA individuals make their voices heard against some of President Trump’s executive actions, which may threaten many on a personal level?

I can’t see Tolstoy wearing a pink pussy hat. But always a voice of defiance, he would have certainly approved of resistance.

The Conversation

Ani Kokobobo, Assistant Professor of Russian Literature, University of Kansas

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Seven academic books that helped to shape modern Britain

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Diarmaid MacCulloch, University of Oxford; Ian Kershaw, University of Sheffield; Richard English, Queen’s University Belfast; Ruth Lister, Loughborough University; Simon Frith, University of Edinburgh, and Veronika Fikfak, University of Cambridge

To celebrate the diversity, innovation and influence of academic books over the course of modern history, seven specialists share the book they believe has been most influential on modern British culture and society, as part of Academic Book Week.

1. The Law of the Constitution, by A.V Dicey

Veronika Fikfak, lecturer and fellow in law, University of Cambridge

It is a measure of A.V.Dicey’s influence that more than 132 years after the first publication, the relevance of his writing is at the core of the UK’s departure from the European Union.

While students and scholars have read Dicey for more than a century as a basic constitutional text, the general public will have become familiar with his arguments on parliamentary sovereignty and the primacy of parliament only recently – with Gina Miller, the lead claimant in the legal fight to get parliament to vote on whether the UK can start the process of leaving the EU.

Dicey argued that the British parliament is an “absolutely sovereign legislature” and had the “right to make or unmake any law”. His legacy in the UK constitutional sphere is unrivalled, and to this day he is referred to as “the great constitutional lawyer”, whose writings have not only shaped the constitutional landscape of the UK until now but are also very likely to decide our future.

2. The Uses of Literacy: Aspects of Working-Class Life, by Richard Hoggart

Simon Frith, Tovey professor of music, University of Edinburgh

When it was first published in 1957, Richard Hoggart’s book made sense of the upheavals in post-war ways of life by referring back to working-class culture – and Hoggart’s own childhood – in pre-war Britain.

What is clear now though, is how important the book became for our understanding of what came next: consumer culture. The book was both a founding text for the academic fields of media and cultural studies, and an inspiration for a new generation of novelists, dramatists and film makers – not least for the team behind Coronation Street, launched in 1960.

3. Modern Ireland 1600-1972, by Roy Foster

Richard English, professor of politics, Queen’s University Belfast

At a difficult point in Anglo-Irish politics, this book brought to a very wide audience the insights of the latest and most important academic scholarship on Ireland. And it considered “Irishness” in terms of a layered and inclusive sense of identities which was then less widely accepted than it has subsequently become.

As the Northern Irish Troubles began to be transformed into a much more benign peace process, and as relations between the Republic of Ireland and the UK continue to be shaped in ways that are significant for both islands, this book heralded a more inclusive and subtle interpretation of how properly to understand Ireland. Indirectly, it made it possible to know a fuller reality of British experience too.

4. The Invention of Tradition, by Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger

Diarmaid MacCulloch, professor of the history of the church, University of Oxford

As the UK began to come to terms with its retreat from imperial narcissism, Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger’s book was a dose of common sense. These essays edited in 1983 concentrate on the creation of the UK and its empire, and nationalist reactions against those developments. It is still just as relevant now as it was when it was published, posing many questions for the understanding of our history.

5. The English and their History, by Robert Tombs

Ian Kershaw, emeritus professor of modern history, University of Sheffield

As its title suggests, Robert Tombs’ magnificent book published in 2014 focuses on English, not British, history. However, England’s history was – long before the union with Scotland in 1707 – deeply entwined with that of Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Tombs’ book not only incorporates these interrelationships but is greatly enlightening about them. It is a book that cannot be ignored by anyone wishing to know more about the history of the isles.

6. Poverty in the United Kingdom, by Peter Townsend

Ruth Lister, emeritus professor of social policy, Loughborough University

Published in 1979, this is a monumental work, which helped modern Britain better to understand itself. Not only did it provide the most comprehensive in-depth picture of what modern poverty means for those affected, it also represented a milestone in developing our understanding of poverty.

Its opening words provided a relative definition of poverty, rooted in a concept of relative deprivation, which still resonates nearly 40 years later and which has influenced subsequent research and policy. As predicted at the time, it ranks as the modern day successor to the classic works of Charles Booth and Seebohm Rowntree.

7. The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, by John Maynard Keynes

John Kay, supernumerary fellow in economics, University of Oxford

In a letter to George Bernard Shaw, Keynes wrote: “I believe myself to be writing a book on economic theory, which will largely revolutionise … the way the world thinks about economic problems.” The author’s assessment of its impact was correct. The analysis of the book was the dominant influence on macroeconomic policies in the 30 years that followed World War II, and we still debate, and employ, Keynesian policies today.

The Conversation

Diarmaid MacCulloch, Professor of the History of the Church, University of Oxford; Ian Kershaw, Emeritus Professor of Modern History, University of Sheffield; Richard English, Professor of Politics, Queen’s University Belfast; Ruth Lister, Emeritus Professor of Social Policy, Loughborough University; Simon Frith, Tovey Chair of Music, University of Edinburgh, and Veronika Fikfak, Lecturer in Law, University of Cambridge

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Shelfie Closing With Little Notice

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The links below are to articles reporting on the almost immediate closure of Shelfie.

For more visit:
– http://the-digital-reader.com/2017/01/30/shelfie-shutdown-31-january-download-ebooks-now/
– http://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/audiobook-and-e-book-bundling-app-shelfie-is-closing

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Bibliomania

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The link below is to an article that takes a look at ‘bibliomania.’

For more visit:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jan/26/bibliomania-the-strange-history-of-compulsive-book-buying

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Microsoft Moving Towards Selling Ebooks

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The link below is to an article reporting on Microsoft moving into the ebook market.

For more visit:
http://the-digital-reader.com/2017/01/17/microsoft-sell-ebooks/