Tuesday, May 29, 2018
Jack London Ebooks
Bookyards Editor: For Jack London fans, you can browse and download his collection of books from here.
10 Legendary And Mysterious Libraries Of The Ancient World
Bookyards Editor: The sad part is that these libraries no longer exist.
A Look At Kabul's First Mobile Library
The library-on-wheels offers pupils and street kids free access to children's books, which are in short supply at public schools and libraries in Afghanistan
AFP: Kabul library bus drives Afghan children to read
The door of the blue bus slides open and dozens of children excitedly bound up the steps, eager to get their hands on hard-to-find books in Kabul's first mobile library.
Named Charmaghz -- the Dari for walnut, which is associated with logic in Afghanistan because the nut resembles a brain -- the converted public bus is hard to miss as it winds through the dusty streets of the Afghan capital.
The library-on-wheels offers pupils and street kids free access to children's books, which are in short supply at public schools and libraries.
It also offers one of the few spaces outside the home that children can use in a city where fear is increasingly keeping residents behind closed doors.
Read more ....
Bookyards Editor: Yup .... the eagerness to read is universal for children throughout the world.
Here's How U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis Draws Leadership Lessons From Books
Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis arrives at the 149th annual Department of Defense National Memorial Day Observance at Arlington National Cemetery, May 29, 2017.
CNBC: Defense Secretary James Mattis is a voracious reader. Here's how he draws leadership lessons from books
* Mattis, hailed for his battlefield prowess and kinship with rank-and-file soldiers, has said that the best way to hone war-fighting skills is to leverage lessons learned from history.
* Before taking the highest office in the Pentagon, Mattis' personal library included 7,000 books.
* "You stay teachable most by reading books by reading what other people went through," Mattis has said.
Defense Secretary James Mattis, a revered Marine with a military career spanning four decades, credits his leadership success to his voracious reading habits.
"Thanks to my reading, I have never been caught flat-footed by any situation, never at a loss for
how any problem has been addressed before. It doesn't give me all the answers, but it lights what is often a dark path ahead," Mattis wrote in a 2003 email to military historian Jill Russell.
Mattis, hailed for his battlefield prowess and kinship with rank-and-file soldiers, explained that the best way to hone war-fighting skills is to leverage lessons learned from history.
Read more ....
Bookyards Editor: I can only hope that he is still reading.
Monday, May 28, 2018
One-In-Five Americans Now Listen To Audiobooks
PEW Research Center: Nearly one-in-five Americans now listen to audiobooks
Americans are spreading their book consumption across several formats, and the use of audiobooks is rising.
About three-quarters (74%) of Americans have read a book in the past 12 months in any format, a figure that has remained largely unchanged since 2012, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in January. Print books remain the most popular format for reading, with 67% of Americans having read a print book in the past year.
Read more ....
Bookyards Editor: And this percentage is increasing.
Five Libraries Around The World That Are Open Despite The Odds
Kabul Public Library. Photograph: Carol Mitchell
The Guardian: Five libraries around the world that are open despite the odds
On World Book Day, a look at libraries from Egypt to Dominica that have remained open despite death threats, extreme weather and terrorism
The Vanished Library in Cairo, Egypt
A converted villa in an affluent district of south Cairo is home to the Bardo Clubhouse, a buzzing cultural hub with a library on its ground floor. Founded by passionate book lover Omar Amin, who left his job in marketing in November to dedicate himself to the library full time, the multilingual collection is made up of donations, including a first edition Harry Potter and a 1927 edition of Kafka’s Amerika which Amin found while rummaging through the Egyptian capital’s book markets.
Read more ....
Bookyards editor: It is a miracle that these libraries are still open.
Chess Ebooks
Bookyards editor: For those who enjoy playing chess, you can browse and download a number of chess ebooks here.
CEOs Are Saying That The Best Books Of 2018 Are The Following
The CEO crowd isn’t the best place to go for book suggestions because they have so little free time to read. Nevertheless, we asked in our recent survey of Fortune 500 CEOs: What’s the best book you have read in the last year? And we got a grab bag of answers–some 40 different books, ranging from autobiographies (Long Walk to Freedom) to classics (The Bible) to fiction (I Am Pilgrim) to nonfiction (The Soul of America.)
Only seven books got mentioned more than once, so I’ll highlight those here. Author Ron Chernow wins the prize for writing two of the seven: Grant (3 mentions) and Alexander Hamilton (2). The only book besides Grant to get three mentions was Principles, which is billionaire hedge fund manager Ray Dalio’s effort to share the secrets of his success with the rest of the world. Worth noting that a fourth CEO cited Radical Candor, by former Google executive Kim Scott, who shares a key element of Dalio’s philosophy.
Read more ....
WNU Editor: When it comes to books ..... everyone has a different point of view. CEOs included.
Why Are Chinese Science Books Not Popular?
Header image: Children read popular science books in Shaoyang, Hunan province, May 30, 2016. VCG
Tang Bo, Sixth Tone: Why Nobody Is Reading China’s Popular Science Books
Neither scientists nor consumers are interested in works targeting a general audience — but my set of children’s books aims to change that.
On April 20, I attended a science salon in Beijing that was cohosted by the China Science Writers Association. During her speech, Yang Xujie, the deputy editor-in-chief of Popular Science Press, bemoaned the fact that high-quality Chinese popular science books are extremely rare, and few sell more than 5,000 copies. Indeed, most best-sellers are translations from foreign languages.
Yang is correct. In 2017, domestic works made up less than one-fifth of the top 100 popular science bestsellers on e-commerce website JD.com, and only around a quarter of a similar list on its competitor, Dangdang. “A Brief History of Time,” written by the late British cosmologist Stephen Hawking, was the most popular science book in China last year.
Read more ....
Bookyards Editor: I know on Bookyards our math, chemistry, and physics ebooks are downloaded primarily from India and China.
Sunday, May 27, 2018
How Artificial Intelligence Is Being Used To Digitize The Vatican's Secret Archives
Sam Keane, The Atlantic: Artificial Intelligence Is Cracking Open the Vatican's Secret Archives
A new project untangles the handwritten texts in one of the world’s largest historical collections.
The Vatican Secret Archives is one of the grandest historical collections in the world. It’s also one of the most useless.
The grandeur is obvious. Located within the Vatican’s walls, next door to the Apostolic Library and just north of the Sistine Chapel, the VSA houses 53 linear miles of shelving dating back more than 12 centuries. It includes gems like the papal bull that excommunicated Martin Luther and the pleas for help that Mary Queen of Scots sent to Pope Sixtus V before her execution. In size and scope, the collection is almost peerless.
That said, the VSA isn’t much use to modern scholars, because it’s so inaccessible. Of those 53 miles, just a few millimeters’ worth of pages have been scanned and made available online. Even fewer pages have been transcribed into computer text and made searchable. If you want to peruse anything else, you have to apply for special access, schlep all the way to Rome, and go through every page by hand.
Read more ....
Bookyards Editor: The Vatican Secret Archives website is here. The project that is digitizing the Vatican's Secret Archives is the following .... In Codice Ratio.
What Is The Best-Selling Dr. Seuss Book of All Time
Random House
People: Surprise! The Cat in the Hat Is Not the Best-Selling Dr. Seuss Book of All Time ... See Which One Is
Happy birthday, Dr. Seuss!
March 2 marks what would have been the famous author’s 114th birthday. In honor of the occasion, his publisher Random House gave PEOPLE the exclusive roundup of the top five best-selling Dr. Seuss books of all time — and No. 1 isn’t what you’d think.
“You’re never too old, too wacky, too wild, to pick up a book and read to a child,” he once said.
Born Theodor Seuss Geisel, Dr. Seuss adopted his catchy moniker shortly after he got fired from his university’s newspaper for drinking bootleg gin. He then went on to have a lucrative career in advertising before he published his first book in 1937. After a few publishing flops, the world discovered his magical stories, like Green Eggs and Ham and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. In total, Dr. Seuss wrote more than 60 books (though not all of them were published).
Read more ....
Bookyards Editor: The answer is "Green Eggs and Ham".
The Works Of Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde (Wikipedia)
Bookyards Editor: For those who enjoy the works of Oscar Wilde, you can browse your download his ebooks at this link.
This Is What Bill Gates Is Reading
Bookyards Editor: This is what Bill Gates has read over the years .... Learn More About Books (Gates Notes).
A Look At What Countries Have The Most Libraries, And What Contries Have The Fewest
EBook Friendly: Countries with the most and fewest libraries per 100,000 residents (infographic)
How can you judge which country is the best for the book lover? You can rank countries by literate behaviour characteristics, for instance.
A much simpler method, however, is to look into how many libraries are available for the residents of each country.
And this is what you can find in an infographic created by Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies.
Read more ....
Bookyards Editor: No surprise that the countries that are being ripped apart by war are also the countries with little if any libraries.
Saturday, May 26, 2018
Libraries Of The Future
Bookyards Editor: A discussion on how libraries of the present and future have been influenced by those of the past?
Works by Albert Einstein
Bookyards Editor: Here are some works by Albert Einstein that you can browse and download. The link is here.
What Happens When The Nerdy Sister In "Pride and Prejudice" Meets Frankenstein.
Saga Press
VOX: 2 of the loneliest characters in literature find companionship in Pride and Prometheus
Jane Austen and Mary Shelley get Frankensteined together in John Kessel’s achingly sincere new novel.
So the nerdy sister from Pride and Prejudice and Frankenstein’s monster walk into a bar...
That is more or less the premise of John Kessel’s Pride and Prometheus, which sees Mary Bennet, the dourest of Jane Austen’s Bennet sisters, become enmeshed in the plot of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. (Frankenstein’s subtitle, The Modern Prometheus, gives Kessel the second half of his title.)
Read more ....
Bookyards.com: A book on what happens when the nerdy sister in "Pride and Prejudice" meets Frankenstein.
Jane Austen's works (the author of Pride and Prejudice) can be downloaded here.
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein's ebook can be downloaded from here.
Friday, May 25, 2018
Here Are 10 Of The Oldest Known Surviving Books In The World
Etruscan Gold Book
Wigan Lane Books: 10 of the Oldest Known Surviving Books in the World
With news this week of the discovery of what could be the earliest known siddur, a Jewish prayer book dated at around 840 AD – we have put together a list of 10 of the oldest known surviving books in the world today.
Writing and literature are thought to have been first developed between the 7th and 4th millenium BC. Since the dawn of writing an incredible array of different materials have been used for recording text, including clay, silk, pottery, papyrus, even coffins – so the question of the oldest surviving book depends very much on how you classify one.
Read more ....
Bookyards Editor: The Etruscan Gold Book is estimated to be about 2,500 years old.
Here Is A List of Free e-Book Websites For Your e-Reader
Good EReader: Comprehensive List of Free e-Book Websites for your e-Reader
If you own an e-reader you often can only buy e-books from the bookstore that is bundled on your device. Many of the budget e-readers out there don’t even have a bookstore that is accessible by users and many people are left to fend for themselves to load content on it.
Today we are proud to give you the most comprehensive free e-book resource catalog online. All of these books are hardware agnostic, which means they are not locked by DRM (Digital Rights Management). All you have to do is simply download a title and load in via the USB cable from your computer to your e-reader.
Read more ....
Bookyards Editor: Another comprehensive list of free e-book websites for your e-reader (Glad to see Bookyards is included)
The Greatest War Novels Ever Written
Inspired by Whitney Terrell’s The Good Lieutenant, we’ve put together a collection of what we believe to be the greatest war novels ever written.
Read more ....
Bookyards Editor: A lot of classics in this list.
Some Interesting Facts About Libraires
Daily Mail: The secret life of libraries... Where did Harry Potter study for his exams? Who ran up a $300k fine for a late book? What’s hidden in the Vatican’s ‘inferno’? A fascinating volume reveals our libraries’ buried treasures
SILENCE ON SET PLEASE...
Where did Harry Potter learn his magic tricks, or the X-Men hone their superpowers? Oxford’s Bodleian Library stood in as Hogwarts Library in the Harry Potter films and it has frequently been used as a film set, appearing in X-Men: First Class (2011) and The Madness Of King George (1994).
Read more ....
Bookyards Editor: A lot of gems in this article on libraries.
Thursday, May 24, 2018
Online Gallery Reveals The Hilarious Things People Have Spotted In Libraries
Daily Mail: So much for keeping quiet! Online gallery reveals the hilarious things people have spotted in LIBRARIES (including invisible books)
* People from around the world shared unusual things they've seen at the library
* Many posted sarcastic signs written by witty librarians
* Others shared pictures of librarians who impersonated book characters
Libraries are usually quiet places where you can escape from everyday life and emerge into a good book.
However, a gallery of hilarious images, shared on Bored Panda, featuring questionably sarcastic signs, unusual displays and librarians convinced they are storybook characters, prove otherwise.
One person was confused to find the book self checkout machine had been replaced with a mirror for a literal 'self' check out. Others were greeted with humorous signs reinforcing library rules...
Read more ....
Bookyards editor: There are some good ones here.
Here Are Some Of The Best Independent Bookstores
CNN: Brick and mortar: Best indie bookstores
In the age of Amazon and e-books, common wisdom claims that brick-and-mortar bookstores are going the way of the dinosaurs. If a national chain such as Borders, which folded in 2011, couldn't succeed in this climate, what are the odds of an independent shop going the distance?
Surprisingly good, it turns out.
I've published three novels over the past three years, and each time I head out on tour, I discover amazing bookstores. While it's hard to beat the Internet for sheer efficiency, virtual book-buying can't satisfy the same itch for discovery that browsing in person can. Moreover, it's become easy to love e-books and local stores since Kobo started partnering with independents to make some 3 million titles available electronically.
Read more ....
Bookyards Editor: I have been to the stores in Quebec City, Toronto, and San Francisco. The Book Passage in San Francisco is my favorite. Being by the water makes it special.
Here Are Ten Magnificent Bookstores (National Geographic)
Bookyards editor: Here are ten magnificent bookstores according to National Geographic .... Top 10 Bookstores.
The Oddness of Isaac Newton
Oliver Moody, The Times Literary Supplement: The oddness of Isaac Newton
There is a well-attested saying of the Prophet Muhammad to the effect that every century or so a “renewer” (mujaddid) will be sent by God to restore Islam to its proper form. The truth requires regular and forcible upkeep. From the jurist ash-Shafi’i and the philosopher-theologians al-Ash’ari and al-Ghazali to Ibn Taymiyyah, the grandfather of modern Salafism, the putative mujaddidun were thinkers who recognized that what has been revealed cannot simply be allowed to bed down into custom and ritual – it must be made new for each generation.
Read more ....
Bookyards Editor: The works of Isaac Newton can be downloaded here.
Wednesday, May 23, 2018
If You Pirate An Ebook In Sweden You Can Get 6 Years In Prison
Good Reader: If you pirate an ebook you can get 6 years in prison
There is a new bill proposal in Sweden that will extend the prison term for anyone pirating an ebook or a movie on a file sharing website, such as BitTorrent. It will go from two years to six years and the amount of time someone would spend in prison would rival someone getting charged with manslaughter.
Presented by Council of Justice member Dag Mattsson, the report envisions new criminal designations and crime being divided into two levels of seriousness. “In cases of gross crimes, a person may be convicted of gross copyright infringement or gross trademark infringement and sent to prison for at least six months and not more than six years.”
Read more ....
Bookyards Editor: Talk about a harsh penalty!!!!!
Remembering W. B. Yeats: 10 Quotes From The Nobel Prize Winner
W. B. Yeats
India Today: Remembering W. B. Yeats: 10 quotes by the first Irishman to receive a Nobel Prize for Literature
William Butler Yeats was one of the most celebrated litterateurs of the twentieth century. Born on June 13, 1865, the author made significant contributions to both English and Irish literature and is particularly remembered for his role in reviving the latter.
Yeats was also the first Irishman to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923. He is one of the few writers who produced their greatest works after receiving the Nobel Prize. His best works include The Tower (1928) and The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1929).
In 1913, Yeats wrote the preface for the translation of Rabindranath Tagore's Geetanjali, for which Tagore had won the Nobel Prize.
Read more ....
Bookyards Editor: Works by W.B. Yeats can be downloaded from the following link.
Tuesday, May 22, 2018
Banning Books In The Name Of Political Correctness Is Absurd
Nicole Russell, Washington Examiner: Banning books, especially 'To Kill a Mockingbird' and 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,' in the name of political correctness is absurd
Schools in the Duluth school district in Northern Minnesota will no longer require high school students to read two classic novels, To Kill a Mockingbird and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, because it might bother their feelings. The Star Tribune reports Duluth schools will keep the books in the library, but the kids won’t study them in English class, due to the “racial slurs” in the novels.
Revising or erasing history, even artistic interpretations of time periods, does a grave disservice to the very students whose “feelings” they are trying to protect.
Read more ....
Bookyards Editor: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' can be downloaded from here.
Here Are Twenty-Three Books Mark Zuckerberg Thinks Everyone Should Read
Mark Zuckerberg, Reuters
The Independent: Twenty-three books Mark Zuckerberg thinks everyone should read
From non-fiction works about the benefits of the free market to sci-fi novels on the capabilities of technology, the publications span a variety of genres
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has a single mission: to connect people around the world.
It's one reason why he decided to launch a Facebook-based book club last year, with a reading list that focused on "different cultures, beliefs, histories, and technologies."
Although the birth of his daughter, Max, kept him from hitting his goal of a book every two weeks, he ended the year with 23 selections in his A Year of Books reading group.
We've put together a list of his picks and why he thinks everyone should read them:
Read more ....
Bookyards Editor: One of the books that he recommends is William James' " The Varieties of Religious Experience." It can be downloaded from here.
31 Incredible Libraries and Bookstores Around the World
Pando Trip: 31 Incredible Libraries and Bookstores Around the World
For centuries libraries have been the temples of knowledge. And they have been treated accordingly – some of them are definitely among the most impressive architectural wonders. Even if you are in a city for a short time, you can visit impressive libraries or bookstores and admire their magnificent beauty.
Read more ....
Bookyards editor: An incredible photo-gallery of libraries.
Monday, May 21, 2018
A Look At How Public Libraries Are Reinventing Themselves For The 21st Century.
Halifax Central Library. (Adam Mørk/Halifax Public Libraries)
Macleans: How public libraries are reinventing themselves for the 21st century
Coding workshops. 3D printers. And books. Far from extinct, today’s public library is about access to technology as much as to knowledge.
On any given day, in one of the world’s busiest urban library systems, 50,000 people come through the doors of the Toronto Public Library’s 100 branches, while 85,000 make an online visit. The walk-ins bring their coffee and their lunches; they talk and watch TV while charging their phones; they do their homework, often via thousands of computer sessions; they make videos or create objects with 3D printers; take classes in computer coding or yoga; attend author talks or listen to experts offer advice for those looking after elderly relatives; access video tutorials on everything from website design to small business management from Lynda.com (an American online education giant that offers 3,600 courses taught by industry experts). Together with their online fellows, they borrow musical instruments, passes to the city’s art galleries and museums, WiFi hotspots, lamps that battle seasonal affective disorder, Raspberry Pis (small, single-board computers primarily used for coding training), DVDs, more than 12,000 ebooks and—of course—plain old print-and-ink books, a good 90,000 of them every day. All at no cost.
Read more ....
Bookyards Editor: Technology is definitely changing everything.
Here Are Some Of The Works By Mark Twain
Bookyards Editor: Enjoy the works of Mark Twain. You can browse and download his ebooks at this link.
Ebooks Are Not 'Stupid' – They're A Revolution
‘The way e-readers have increased accessibility to books is not an enhancement, it’s a godsend,’ says Erin Kelly Photograph: Amazon
The Guardian: Ebooks are not 'stupid' – they're a revolution
The head of publisher Hachette has claimed ebooks are a failure – but as an author and a reader, they’ve completely changed my life
I was a relatively late convert to the e-reader, getting my Kindle five years ago when it became clear that reading 600-pages of A Suitable Boy while breastfeeding wasn’t going to work. After a frenzied few months of almost exclusive e-reading, I returned largely to the traditional printed book for a number of reasons: screen fatigue, a tendency to scrawl in margins, because I want my kids to see me reading, and because I’m a passionate supporter of bookshops and booksellers. Hachette Livre CEO Arnaud Nourry recently called ebooks “stupid” – but last summer, they changed my life.
Read more ....
Bookyards Editor: I agree .... because I know ebooks have completely changed my life.
Are Ebooks A Stupid Idea?
The Guardian: 'Ebooks are stupid', says head of one of world's biggest publishers
The chief executive of Hachette Livre, Arnaud Nourry, says the industry has had ‘one or two successes among a hundred failures’ and that ebooks have ‘no creativity’
The head of one of the world’s largest book publishers has described the ebook as “a stupid product” that is unlikely to see further growth.
Arnaud Nourry, chief executive of Hachette Livre, made the comment to the Indian news site Scroll.in in a wide-ranging interview about Hachette’s future in India, which also touched on digital publishing. According to Nourry, the “plateau, or rather slight decline”, that ebook sales have seen in the US and the UK in recent years is “not going to reverse”.
Read more ....
Bookyards Editor: Are ebooks a stupid idea? I think not but the head of one of the world's biggest publishers believes they are.
Sunday, May 20, 2018
Inside The World's Most Incredible Libraries
Daily Mail: Truly novel tourist attractions! Inside the world's most incredible libraries, from Hogwarts-style galleries to gold-leaf monasteries
* Some are fascinating old halls with wooden ladders and mesmerising ceilings that are hundreds of years old
* One of the most beautiful is Prague's Clementinum library, featuring baroque halls, globes and ornate balconies
* Bibliotheque Joanine shimmers with dazzling gold, whereas Tama Art University in Tokyo has futuristic architecture
It's hard to imagine these libraries have problems with late returns - as users are surely desperate to come back again and again.
They are the most spectacular in the world.
Some are fascinating old halls with wooden ladders and mesmerising ceilings that have housed literary works for centuries. Others modern masterpieces.
One of the most spectacular is the Clementinum library which features baroque halls, a collection of globes and ornate balconies lining the walls.
Read more ....
Bookyards Editor: Very impressive.
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