Parenthetical.net

The conclusion of Michael Chabon’s essay “Let Me Entertain You”, published today in the L. A. Times:
…[E]ntertainment — as I define it, pleasure and all — remains the only sure means we have of bridging, or at least of feeling as if we have bridged, the gulf of consciousness that separates each of us from [...]

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From the (Environmental Protection) Agency’s Earth Day history page:
EPA was born in 1970 - a time when rivers caught fire and cities were hidden under dense clouds of smoke. We’ve made remarkable progress since then in protecting human health and safeguarding the natural environment.
Remember 40 years ago, when life was like a science fiction movie? [...]

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I wrote recently about the fact that my mental picture of “apocalypse” is stuck in the Cold War — instantaneous disaster, as opposed to the currently more likely slow(-ish) environmental collapse. I mused about what current YA readers of science fiction will picture, which made me wonder: other than Uglies, what’s being written in [...]

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This post on LibraryThing’s Thingology blog appeals to my nerdly love of maps and my nerdly love of books! The author shows maps of a few cities (including Cambridge, MA), with the libraries marked with blue dots and the bookstores marked with green. The ways they cluster, or don’t, is pretty interesting.
A confounding [...]

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The London Times and Chicken House Publisher have sponsored a “write the next great children’s book” contest. The field of 2,000 entries has been narrowed down to a five-title shortlist, of which you can read (very) brief excerpts at Times Online.
Sadly, unlike on American Idol, we the people don’t get to vote [...]

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Background: Two days ago, Roger Sutton (the editor of Horn Book) blogged that “adults whose taste in recreational reading ends with the YA novel need to grow up.” The comments, predictably (but intelligently), exploded, including a couple of smart posts by my friend Deborah, who expanded on the subject in her blog.
In a comment [...]

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A comment on my last post, from ruthling:
“young adult” and “SF/fantasy” books get the double whammy, since no author wants to be painted by the genre brush if they can get away with it at all (see Margaret Atwood, for example).
It’s true, which I find perplexing. The stereotype is that the kids who [...]

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I’ve been meaning to post for awhile about a Dave Itzkoff review in the New York Times that was apparently written to make me cranky. He reviews two works of YA fantasy/sf: China Mieville’s Un Lun Dun (which I enjoyed, if not adored) and Neil Gaiman’s INTERWORLD (which I haven’t read). [...]

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Dude! When I was in elementary school, we watched an educational series called Tomes and Talismans. It never occurred to me to look it up on YouTube until today, but here it is! I had forgotten what it was about, exactly, but according to the blurb by the person who posted it [...]

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Thanks to a full-page ad in the book review journal Book Links, I now have a new favorite publishing company: Magination Press, “Self-Help Books for Kids…and the Adults in Their Lives.” Winning titles include (see if you can guess the theme):
Clouds and Clocks: A Story for Children Who Soil.
Sammy the Elephant and Mr. Camel: [...]

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