Disasters and crises bring out the best in us

https://ideas.ted.com/disasters-and-crises-bring-out-the-best-in-us/

The Precise Meaning Of Emotion Words Is Different Around The World

 

12 delightful, insightful quotes about reading, writing and storytelling, from TED Talks

Five Unusual, Evidence-Based Ways To Get Better At A New Language

articolul si sursa: https://digest.bps.org.uk/2019/07/03/five-unusual-evidence-based-ways-to-get-better-at-a-new-language/

By Emma Young

TED’s giant summer reading list: 151 books to dive into right now

We asked TED speakers, TED-Ed educators and TED Fellows: “What books would you bring with you to a desert island?” In their deliciously diverse responses, you’ll find there’s something for every kind of reader.

articolul integral, aici

21 Books You May Have Missed in 2018

If you missed these books in 2018, don’t fret. Just hunker down and get reading.

By Lorraine Berry

sursa: readitforward.com

Learn to read Chinese… with ease!

sursa: ted.com

88 books to enjoy this summer: the TED reading list

Whether your weeks ahead contain travel, vacations or just longer and lazier days than usual, our list of recommendations from TED speakers has books for all moods, activities and tastes.

sursa şi articolul integral, la:ideas.ted.com

About the author: Rebekah Barnett is the community speaker coordinator at TED, and knows a good flag when she sees one.

The Ugly Truth About Self-Publishing: Not another cookie-cutter contemporary romance

Forget everything you think you know about writing and self-publishing. Chances are it’s complete bullshit.

Nowadays there are literally hundreds of thousands of people who dream of being a professional writer. And thanks to self-publishing and print-on-demand, there’s nothing stopping you or anyone else from publishing whatever you want.

Even if it’s complete crap.

sursa si articolul integral, la amazon.com

by Oliver Markus Malloy (author)

How language shapes the way we think

Life lessons from writers (playlist)

5 writers share deft musings and observations pulled from the pages of their own work, fellow wordsmiths and the world around them.

watch on: TED.com

The Gruesome Origins of 10 Classic Fairy Tales

Many classic fairy tales had early versions that had some very grim content such as torture, rape, and cannibalism. Often, these graphic elements helped shape the stories into tales of caution. They were designed to teach children important lessons. Over time, the most gruesome parts were dropped to make the stories more pleasant. As a result, many of the stories completely lost their original meanings.

Here are some of the gruesome details that get left out in the modern versions of 10 classic fairy tales.

continuarea pe unbelievable-facts.com

Book Publishing for Beginners

Become a bestselling author and change your life

sursa: amazon.com 

Buzz Books 2018: Spring/Summer

Our biannual Buzz Books captures all the excitement of the American Booksellers Association’s Winter Institute and takes it much further. Start off a year of new reading discoveries with substantial excerpts from 40 talked about Buzz Books due to be published in the months ahead.

continue reading on amazon.com

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10 Fascinating Facts Behind World-Famous Logos

A logo is something that defines a brand. It defines what a company stands for and how consumers can associate themselves with the brand. Companies spend millions of dollars in the design of their logos so that they can have unique logos to stand out from their competitors. We see hundreds of logos every day, but there are a few that just stick in our minds. Maybe it’s the colors of the logo or a hidden element that adds to the aesthetics. We bring to you ten such fascinating facts behind world-famous logos.

continuarea si sursa

Your holiday reading recommendations from TED speakers: 56 books you won’t be able to put down

Since we know TED speakers love to read, we asked them: What book could you not stop reading? Here are their eclectic picks, ready for gifting or for sticking in your carry-on.

articolul integral, la: ideas.ted.com  

by Anna Badkhen

Was this poem written by a computer or human?

How would you feel if you read a poem — and then found out it was written by a computer? Would you be upset? Impressed? Would it make you like the poem less?

In 2013, Australian grad student Oscar Schwartz and his friend Benjamin Laird created a website called bot or not. On the site, you’re presented with a poem and you have to guess whether it was written by a human or computer.

continuarea la ideas.ted.com

by Hailey Reissman

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„The most important infrastructure we have is educated minds.” (on TED)

Elizabeth Barrett Browning on the Dangerous Myth of the Suffering Artist and What Makes Life Worth Living

A beautiful clarion call for making creative work “the filling joy of your life” no matter how difficult the cards you’ve been dealt. (…)

sursa

By Maria Popova

Required reading: The books that students read in 28 countries around the world

This compilation of reading assigned to students everywhere will expand your horizons — and your bookshelves.

In the US, most students are required to read To Kill a Mockingbird during their school years. This classic novel combines a moving coming-of-age story with big issues like racism and criminal injustice. Reading Mockingbird is such an integral part of the American educational experience that we wondered: What classic books are assigned to students elsewhere?

We posed this question to our TED-Ed Innovative Educators and members of the TED-Ed community. People all over the globe responded, and we curated our list to focus on local authors.

Many respondents made it clear in their countries, as in the US, few books are absolutely mandatory.

Take a look at what students in countries from Ireland to Iran, Ghana to Germany, are asked to read and why:

articolul integral, la sursa: ideas.ted.com

autori: Daryl Chen + Laura McClure

sursa foto: internet

The 2017 Man Booker prize longlist

International range … longlisted authors (from left) Arundhati Roy, Paul Auster and Zadie Smith. Composite: Chandni Ghosh / Getty / Dominique Nabokov

The 2017 Man Booker prize longlist

4321 by Paul Auster (Faber & Faber)

Days Without End by Sebastian Barry (Faber & Faber)

History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, Orion Books)

Exit West by Mohsin Hamid (Hamish Hamilton, Penguin Random House)

Solar Bones by Mike McCormack (Canongate)

Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor (4^th Estate, HarperCollins)

Elmet by Fiona Mozley (JM Originals, John Murray)

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy (Hamish Hamilton, Penguin Random House)

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders (Bloomsbury)

Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie (Bloomsbury)

Autumn by Ali Smith (Hamish Hamilton, Penguin Random House)

Swing Time by Zadie Smith (Hamish Hamilton, Penguin Random House)

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (Fleet, Little, Brown)

articolul integral, la sursa: theguardian.com

autor: Alison Flood

40 Books to Read Before You’re 40

The books below cover nonfiction, fiction, and poetry to help navigate life in career, in family, or in loss. There are also a few classics that you should have read by now regardless! How many of the below books have you read?

sursa: global.penguinrandomhouse.com

Albert Camus on the Three Antidotes to the Absurdity of Life

“In a world whose absurdity appears to be so impenetrable, we simply must reach a greater degree of understanding among men, a greater sincerity.”

continuarea articolului, la sursa: brainpickings.org

autor: Maria Popova  

The Personality of Chaucer

This book is part of a trilogy devoted to the greatest of the older English poets: Milton, Shakespeare, and here, Chaucer.

What we know about Chaucer’s personal life is still relatively vague.

Wagenknecht assumes the difficult, but always fascinating, task of re-creating a figure dead for many centuries and revealed only by his literary works.

Creating a vivid portrait of Chaucer’s character and personality, Wagenknecht discusses Chaucer’s views, temperament, attitudes, and faith.

continuarea articolului la: amazon.com

101 books to dive into this summer: a massive reading list

Here’s a huge list of TED speaker-recommended books, with all the diversity of titles and topics you might expect. No matter your mood, preference or occasion, we’ve got you covered.

continue reading HERE

by Rebekah Barnett + Chelsea Catlett 

Best Beach Reads: 11 Perfect Nonfiction Books That Read Like Fiction

Who says beach reads can’t be based in reality? Each of these 11 true stories is so utterly compelling that it reads like fiction. Whether your favorite genre is political thrillers or mysteries, tales of friendship or dystopia, historical fiction or science fiction, horror or adventure, any of these compelling nonfiction titles in your beach bag will happily take you away to a truth that is stranger than fiction.

continuarea articolului, la sursa: offtheshelf.com

By Allison Tyler

 

The Big Books of Summer 2017

PW’s editors have selected a wide variety of summer books for all tastes. In our staff picks, you’ll find Lincoln Child’s thriller featuring werewolves in the Adirondacks, Lydia Davis’s translation of Marcel Proust’s letters to his neighbor, Chiara Barzini’s coming-of-age novel set against the 1994 Northridge earthquake, and many more. For deeper dives into fiction, mystery/thriller, romance, sci-fi, nonfiction, and children’s, check out our category picks for even more great summer books. Happy reading!

la sursa: publishersweekly.com

Announcing the 2017 O. Henry Prize Stories

We are very happy to announce the O. Henry Prize Stories for 2017, edited by Laura Furman, which will appear in an eponymous anthology this September, from Anchor.

continuarea, la sursa: Literary Hub

E-books and online newspapers to become cheaper

Electronic books which are downloaded on Kindle or other e-readers, and publications such as online newspapers will soon cost significantly less. The European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs will vote today on a proposal to change EU VAT law. Tom Vandenkendelaere MEP, EPP Group Spokesman on the VAT rates applied to books, newspapers and periodicals, said:

continuarea articolului, la sursa: psnews.ro

scrisă de Ion Ancuta

10 Scientific Facts About Reading Books And How Could It Really Improve Your Life

Many people perceive reading as an introverted hobby, for the feeble, anti-social. However, you will be pleasantly surprised to find out that reading has numerous positive effects on your emotional, intellectual and psychological state of mind. Here’s how:

continuarea articolului, la sursa: unbelievable-facts.com

10 Interesting Myths about William Shakespeare

10 Interesting Myths about William Shakespeare

sursa: interestingliterature.com

Announcing the Pulitzers

The Pulitzer Prizes have been announced. Here are the winners in Literature, Drama, History, Biography, Poetry, and General Nonfiction, along with the reason given by the committee:

Fiction – The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead – „For a smart melding of realism and allegory that combines the violence of slavery and the drama of escape in a myth that speaks to contemporary America.”

 

Drama – Sweat by Lynn Nottage – „For a nuanced yet powerful drama that reminds audiences of the stacked deck still facing workers searching for the American dream.”

History – Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy by Heather Ann Thompson – „For a narrative history that sets high standards for scholarly judgment and tenacity of inquiry in seeking the truth about the 1971 Attica prison riots.”

 

Biography – The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between by Hisham Matar – „For a first-person elegy for home and father that examines with controlled emotion the past and present of an embattled region.”

Poetry – Olio by Tyehimba Jess – „For a distinctive work that melds performance art with the deeper art of poetry to explore collective memory and challenge contemporary notions of race and identity.”

 

General Nonfiction – Evicted by Matthew Desmond – „For a deeply researched exposé that showed how mass evictions after the 2008 economic crash were less a consequence than a cause of poverty.”

autor: Chris Schluep 

sursa: The Amazon Book Review

How language changes over time

Playlist (7 talks): 

http://www.ted.com/playlists/228/how_language_changes_over_time?utm_source=newsletter_daily&utm_campaign=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_content=playlist__2017-03-16playlist_button

John Koenig: Beautiful new words to describe obscure emotions

John Koenig (writer) loves finding words that express our unarticulated feelings — like „lachesism,” the hunger for disaster, and „sonder,” the realization that everyone else’s lives are as complex and unknowable as our own. Here, he meditates on the meaning we assign to words and how these meanings latch onto us.

John Koenig is writing an original dictionary of made-up words. Full bio

sursa: ted.com

 

Transhumanism: More Nightmare Than Dream?

On the eve of the 20th century, an obscure Russian man who had refused to publish any of his works began to finalize his ideas about resurrecting the dead and living forever. A friend of Leo Tolstoy’s, this enigmatic Russian, whose name was Nikolai Fyodorovich Fyodorov, had grand ideas about not only how to reanimate the dead but about the ethics of doing so, as well as about the moral and religious consequences of living outside of Death’s shadow. He was animated by a utopian desire: to unite all of humanity and to create a biblical paradise on Earth, where we would live on, spurred on by love. He was an immortalist: one who desired to conquer death through scientific means.

Despite the religious zeal of his notions—which a number of later Christian philosophers unsurprisingly deemed blasphemy—Fyodorov’s ideas were underpinned by a faith in something material: the ability of humans to redevelop and redefine themselves through science, eventually becoming so powerfully modified that they would defeat death itself. Unfortunately for him, Fyodorov—who had worked as a librarian, then later in the archives of Ministry of Foreign Affairs—did not live to see his project enacted, as he died in 1903.

Fyodorov may be classified as an early transhumanist. Transhumanism is, broadly, a set of ideas about how to technologically refine and redesign humans, such that we will eventually be able to escape death itself. This desire to live forever is strongly tied to human history and art; indeed, what may be the earliest of all epics, the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, portrays a character who seeks a sacred plant in the black depths of the sea that will grant him immortality. Today, however, immortality is the stuff of religions and transhumanism, and how these two are different is not always clear to outsiders. (…)

Yet transhumanism is increasingly influential in the world we live in. Modern medicine, after all, is concerned with prolonging and improving human life, and even mundane technologies, like cell phones, can grant us radical extensions of our natural abilities; like gods of old, we can communicate across continents in a blink, can navigate cities we’ve never been to with instantly conjured-up maps. In Civilization and its Discontents, Freud defined the human as “a kind of prosthetic god”; for Emerson, “a man is a god in ruins.” Transhumanists surprisingly, or unsurprisingly, frequent Silicon Valley—and a fascinating new book by Mark O’Connell, To Be a Machine, attempts to examine, define, and perhaps redefine transhumanism for the masses. O’Connell’s book is by turns intriguing and unsettling, insightful and comedic, populated by transhumanists—both famous and working in the shadows—who are often as outsize as their ideas.

articolul integral, la sursa: lithub.com

By Gabrielle Bellot

The Annotated ”Ann of Green Gables” by L. M. Montgomery

„March came in that winter like the meekest and mildest of lambs, bringing days that were crisp and golden and tingling.”

sursa: Oxford Classics

If They Gave Oscars To Books, Our 2016 Nominees

What would happen if the Academy gave Oscars to the book world? Okay, it would be the National Book Awards. But what if it was even bigger than that? Since the Academy Awards air this weekend, here’s a fun and diverting game to play at whatever party you get dragged to: what would the categories look like if they applied to books and not films? Sure, best picture makes an easy parallel, but what about sound editing? Hairstyling? Cinematography? Our nominations for the imaginary 2017 Literary Oscars are below, or go ahead and make up your own. NB: Just like the actual Oscars, all of these categories leave off a host of worthy contenders—but lists are finite and so are all of our attention spans. Feel free to add on ad infinitum in the comments.

continuarea articolului la lithub.com

By Emily Temple 

sursa

sursa foto: internet

Lara Setrakian: 3 ways to fix a broken news industry

Something is very wrong with the news industry. Trust in the media has hit an all-time low; we’re inundated with sensationalist stories, and consistent, high-quality reporting is scarce, says journalist and entrepreneur Lara Setrakian. She shares three ways we can fix the news and make the complex issues of our time easier to understand.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lara_setrakian_3_ways_to_fix_a_broken_news_industry?utm_source=tedcomshare&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=tedspread

sursa: ted.com

The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Books of February: Our Top 5 Picks (The Amazon Book Review)

There’s a heck of a lot to like among the science fiction and fantasy books released this month. A murder mystery with clones, a supernatural ship made of fingernails and toenails that will usher in the end of the world, a galaxy in which teleportation has made heroic (and hilarious) space pilots irrelevant, a growing revolution against aristocratic magic users, and giant roaches that steal people from their beds… Read on to learn more about five of our favorite February books that will plunge you into very different worlds.

 

Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman – Neil Gaiman putting his own fingerprints on the Norse myths? Cue the hyperventilation of delighted readers. That reaction is genuinely earned in this tight retelling, as Gaiman darts between a Tolkienesque tone in the epic origin stories and his own bright wit in the tales centering on the adventures of Thor, Loki, and Odin. Many who read Norse Mythology will make this volume their joyful leaping-off point into a strange and mesmerizing world of gods, giants, undead goats, betrayals, a slanderous squirrel, elves, dwarves, and Valkyries. Read our interview with Neil Gaiman about his „weird little side project” to learn more.

 

Ubo by Steve Rasnic Tem – After Daniel is kidnapped away from his wife and child by giant roaches and taken to a place he only knows as UBO, he is forced to relive the memories of mass shooters, serial killers, and soldiers in war so that the roaches can better understand how humans’ violent impulses work—or at least that’s what Daniel thinks is going on. As he uncovers more and more truths, the reality of his situation is even more frightening. Tem’s introspective retelling of the killings of Jack the Ripper and others adds to the already high horror level of this tale, but he clearly has ideas he wants to convey about the human animal and its propensity for violence—and for our need for connection and beauty as well.

 

Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty – An inventive (air-)locked room mystery, Six Wakes will keep you guessing alongside the murdered and freshly cloned crew of the spaceship Dormire, as they try to uncover who among them could have done the deed. Lafferty sets a blistering pace as the nuanced characters continually reveal new facets to the mystery through inventive backstories. (Review by Matt Fyffe)

 

Gilded Cage by Vic James – This book was initially described to me as „Red Rising meets Downton Abbey,” and that rings true if Red Rising took place in modern-day England instead of on Mars and Downton Abbey were populated by frightening, sometimes sociopathic magic users determined to keep their spot at the top of the social heap by any means necessary. Okay, so maybe it’s not the most precise description of the plot, but it’s a good match for the conflict, as the heroine is forced to serve the aristocratic and dominating Jardine clan while the rumbling undertones of revolution are being amplified by her brother incarcerated in a slavetown. Original and gripping, Gilded Cage launches a new series from debut novelist James.

 

Will Save the Galaxy for Food by Yahtzee Croshaw – When a down-on-his-luck space pilot is paid well to impersonate someone else at a fancy dinner, he learns too late that he’s pretending to be the galaxy’s most hated pilot. Worse, the dinner is hosted by the galaxy’s baddest crime boss, who wants to hire him to drive his son around the solar system for the weekend. Space pirates, a steely executive assistant who’s always working the angles, and the awkwardness of teenage crushes add to the chaos. As our hero extricates himself from one deadly situation, he immediately face-plants into the next one, keeping the humor and action levels at 11 at all times. Good clean fun.

Click here to see all our February picks, including The Book of Etta by Meg Elison, A Conjuring of Light by V. E. Schwab, and With Blood upon the Sand by Bradley P. Beaulieu. Or discover which books we chose as the best science fiction and fantasy of 2016.

 

by  Adrian Liang

sursa: omnivoracious.com 

Can Science Fiction Save the Earth?

Dan Bloom Hopes „Cli-Fi” Will Sway Non-Believers

In the 1957 pulp classic On the Beach, the novelist and aeronautical engineer Nevil Shute imagined a horrific scenario in the aftermath of World War III. A small group of survivors clustered in southern Australia await the arrival of a deadly radioactive cloud, contemplating the near-certainty that the rest of humanity has already perished.

It’s a terrifying prospect, of course, which is why the book has retained its grip on the public imagination, adapted twice as a movie and, in 2008, as a BBC radio broadcast. Dan Bloom first read On the Beach in a high school English class in 1967. It gave him Cold War nightmares.

By James Sullivan 

sursa: lithub.com

James Sullivan is the author of books on George Carlin, James Brown and the history of blue jeans, a regular contributor to the Boston Globe and former staff critic for the San Francisco Chronicle. Follow him on Twitter @sullivanjames.

http://www.jamessullivanauthor.com

 

* Climate fiction, or climate change fiction, popularly abbreviated as cli–fi (modelled after the assonance of „sci-fi„) is a term describing a growing body of fiction literature that deals with climate change and global warming. (Wikipedia)