For the 130,000 people who came out in the rain last year – including UL – it is exciting to hear that the [...]]]> Hoards of Washington-area book lovers and tourists anxiously await the National Book Festival each year. Organized by the Library of Congress (LOC), the festival fills the National Mall and attracts thousands of people.

For the 130,000 people who came out in the rain last year – including UL – it is exciting to hear that the National Book Festival is being awarded $5 million over the next five years by Philanthropist James H. Billington.

According to The Washington Post:

The gift was generated, in part, by conversations Rubenstein and Librarian of Congress’ James H. Billington had about their childhoods. “We were discussing the parallels in our own lives with parents who didn’t have higher education but were tremendously devoted to books,” said Billington. Rubenstein, co-founder of the Washington-based private equity firm the Carlyle Group, was a Saturday regular at his local Baltimore library. “The limit was 12 books and I would put them in my book bag, and then return the next week for more,” Rubenstein said. Now international plane trips allow Rubenstein to read six to eight books a week, he said.

The socially minded bookworms will be particularly thrilled to note that the award will not only provide long-term funding for the festival, but also provide the LOC with the opportunity to develop a fully integrated program that promotes both literacy and the library.

This donation is the perfect gift for the LOC, which struggles to meet the annual $2.5 million fundraising requirement to host the book festival. It’s also timely, as the National Book Festival celebrates its 10-year anniversary this year. Scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 25th from 10am to 5:30pm, 2010′s Festival is aptly themed “A Decade of Words and Wonder.”

–Nikita Mitchell

Internet Archive, a non-profit digital library, began a new initiative: to make more books available for the blind and disabled. So far the organization has collected one million books.  Geek.com reports digital copies of the books can be downloaded for free at OpenLibrary.com.

To digitize books they are scanned first and then translated to a format [...]]]>

Internet Archive, a non-profit digital library, began a new initiative: to make more books available for the blind and disabled. So far the organization has collected one million books.  Geek.com reports digital copies of the books can be downloaded for free at OpenLibrary.com.

To digitize books they are scanned first and then translated to a format that can be read by devices. These devices have the ability to read text aloud. Only those who are legally blind or disabled will have access to this free service.

While this donation doubled the number of books for the disabled, individuals and organizations are still encouraged to donate more books to continue to expand the collection. The Associated Press reports those who donate and digitize these books are not in violation of copyright law because government permits copying books for those with disabilities.

–Veronica Wells

Photo: freedomscientific.com

Oher kept his [...]]]> Michael Oher, offensive tackle for the Baltimore Ravens, is set to release a memoir in February 2011. The Baltimore Sun reports Oher, whose story inspired both the novel and highly acclaimed movie, The Blind Side, thought he was portrayed as unintelligent and would like a chance to tell his story his way.

Oher kept his distance from the hoopla surrounding his story and only granted two interviews when the book was released. Oher will partner with writer Don Yaeger who’s been involved in other athletic memoirs including Chicago Bears running back Walter Payton’s Never Die Easy.

Oher’s parents also wrote a novel called In a Heartbeat that will be released in July.

–Veronica Wells

Photo: NCFL Literacy Now

The appeals court said that the plaintiff has to prove [...]]]> A U.S. appeals court has ordered U.S. District Judge Deborah Batts to reconsider her injunction on a novel based on J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, according to The San Francisco Chronicle. Batts had blocked the book, written by Fredrik Colting, from publishing in July.

The appeals court said that the plaintiff has to prove likelihood of irreparable harm to get the injunction, not simply probability of succeeding on the question of infringement. The members cited an EBay Inc. patent-infringement case as the standard. Salinger claimed in his lawsuit that Colting’s book, 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye, had “extensive similarities” to his classic book. Colting’s novel featured a 76-year-old character similar to Catcher‘s Holden Caulfield meeting the author who created him.

Salinger was extremely protective of his works, never authorizing a new narrative featuring Holden or that was similar to Catcher in the Rye, according to court filings. With Salinger’s death in January, his widow, Colleen Salinger, and son, Matthew Salinger, will take up the case.

–Kristin Hunt

Photo: guybrariang

Maybe Earth Day made you feel a little guilty, like you needed to get your life together if at least for the next couple weeks. So how can you apply your new green lifestyle to your reading habits? Recently Daniel Goleman, author of Ecological Intelligence: The Hidden Impacts of What We Buy and Harvard professor [...]]]>

Maybe Earth Day made you feel a little guilty, like you needed to get your life together if at least for the next couple weeks. So how can you apply your new green lifestyle to your reading habits? Recently Daniel Goleman, author of Ecological Intelligence: The Hidden Impacts of What We Buy and Harvard professor Gregory Norris wrote an article for The New York Times comparing the environmental friendliness of the new, hip e-readers to the traditional book, made from recycled paper.

The analysis of the two was very detailed including the environmental cost of each from production to decomposition.

From the beginning it looked like books were winning, until you consider the gas emissions it would take to drive a hypothetical five miles to the bookstore and the time it would take for a book to decompose in a landfill.

But before you burn your old paperbacks and buy a Kindle, the article also mentioned that if not recycled properly these e-readers could be disassembled by workers, sometimes children, exposing them to hazardous chemicals.

In the end, Golemean and Norris said neither was all that great. The best way to read green is, simply, to walk to your local library and check out a book.

–Veronica Wells

Photo: bjh photography

The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction prize went to [...]]]> On Friday, April 23 The L.A Times announced the winners of the 2009 L.A Times Book Prizes. Rafael Yglesias took the price for Fiction for his novel A Happy Marriage, which tells the story of a 30-year marriage and all the things that come with it.

The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction prize went to Philipp Meyer for American Rust, which was also Amazon’s Best Book of the Month in February 2009. The Young Adult Literature prize was awarded to Elizabeth Partridge for Marching for Freedom: Walk Together Children and Don’t You Grow Weary, a book that presents the Civil Rights Movement through the eyes of the children that were involved.

The Current Interest prize went to Dave Eggers for his narrative non-fiction book exploring the life of one man after Hurricane Katrina; the novel is named after the main character, Zeitoun.

Visit the L.A Times article to see who else won, and start adding these great books to your reading list!

–Silvia Viñas

In the 300,000th unnecessary-but-amusing thrusting of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland into the pop culture spotlight, retailer Antropologie is selling a beautiful, pink flamingo cover of the [...]]]> We’re more concerned with what’s inside of a book’s pages here at Uptown Literati, but when a book cover is artfully done, well, that gets our attention too.

In the 300,000th unnecessary-but-amusing thrusting of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland into the pop culture spotlight, retailer Antropologie is selling a beautiful, pink flamingo cover of the classic book. AIW, along with Through the Looking-Glass, are part of Penguin Book’s cloth-bound editions, which included Wuthering Heights and Price and Prejudice last year.

Get your own copy for $20 at Anthropologie.com. Or for about $13.60 at Amazon.com.

–Whitney Teal

Read more: Curiouser and Curiouser: The Many Faces of Alice