Why Do People Read?

After reflecting on some of the interesting points made by Tom Peter’s recent Library Journal article entitled The Future of Reading, blogger Stephen Abrams posted fifteen reasons he could quickly think of for why people bother reading at all.

Abrams’ (unranked) list:

• To learn
• To engage in hearing other’s opinions (to agree or disagree or just to understand and be empathetic)
• To develop more knowledge about myself and develop as a whole person
• To be entertained and laugh, to engage and interact
• To address boredom and the inexorable progress of time
• To research and keep up-to-date
• To participate well in civil society (everything from news to voting)
• To be informed (and maybe smarter)
• To understand others (individually and culturally)
• To escape our day-to-day lives
• To stimulate the imagination and be inspired
• To write and communicate better through reading others
• To teach
• To have something to talk about
• To connect with like-minded people

Can you think of other reasons you read, and/or enjoy reading?

Mark Your Calendars for These Writer Appearances

What do a Southern literary icon, a sci-fi/fantasy legend, and a Pulitzer Prize winner have in common? They’re all coming to Georgia Perimeter College this fall, as the Writers Institute and its campus and community partners welcome Lee Smith, Brandon Sanderson, and Rick Bragg.
 
Lee Smith will appear as part of  the Chattahoochee Review’s 30th Anniversary Reading Series, sponsored by the Fellowship of Southern Authors and the GPC Foundation. Smith is the author of 11 novels, including her most recent, On Agate Hill, which Kirkus Reviews calls “an authentic American saga, bittersweet as an Appalachian ballad, peopled with wonderfully vivid characters, so brilliantly constructed we never even notice the quilt-like artfulness of her design.”

Thursday, November 12, 2:30 pm
Georgia Perimeter College – Clarkston Campus
Jim Cherry Learning Resources Center (auditorium, ground floor of the Library building)
555 N. Indian Creek Drive
Clarkston, GA 30021

Brandon Sanderson, the New York Times best-selling author of the Mistborne series, was recently chosen by the widow of sci-fi/fantasy legend Robert Jordan to complete Jordan ’s epic “Wheel of Time” cycle. This event, co-sponsored by the Atlanta Writers Club and Eagle Eye Book Shop, is part of Sanderson’s national book tour to promote the next installment in the cycle, The Gathering Storm.

Friday, November 13, 3:30pm
Georgia Perimeter College – Clarkston Campus
Cole Auditorium
555 N Indian Creek Drive
Clarkston, GA 30021

Rick Bragg, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and essayist , thanks to The Georgia Center for the Book, will be joined on stage at Cole Auditorium by another mainstay of Southern fiction, Sonny Brewer, best known for his best-selling memoirs All Over but the Shoutin’, Ava’s Man, and, most recently, The Prince of Frogtown.

Friday, December 11, 7pm
Georgia Perimeter College – Clarkston Campus
Cole Auditorium
555 N Indian Creek Drive
Clarkston, GA 30021

From an email distributed by The Atlanta Writer’s Group

Atlanta Queer Literary Festival

The 3rd Annual Atlanta Queer Literary Festival began this week and runs through Saturday evening. The Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System is one of the Festival’s sponsors, and the events are free and open to the public.

The full schedule for the Festival is available at the Festival website.

New Intown Bookstore to Open at Emory

Next spring, Barnes & Noble will be opening a new bookstore near the main entrance to Emory University.

Although the store will take over the current operations of the University’s current bookstore, it will be open to the public. The new store will contain a large coffeehouse, outdoor seating, and a roof garden.

From Emory Magazine

Free O’Connor Event Tomorrow at Emory

What: “Habits of Being: Flannery O’Connor and Sally Fitzgerald”

When: Thursday, November 5, 2009, 4pm

Where: Emory University’s Woodruff Library, Jones Room (Level 3)

A scholarly panel will assess the legacy of Sally Fitzgerald. Washington Post book critic Jonathan Yardley will be keynote speaker, and acclaimed actress Brenda Bynum will perform a dramatic reading from the O’Connor letters.

Newest Nonfiction Arrivals at Ponce

                   

Upcoming Local Literary Event for Environmentally-Conscious Booklovers

Contributed by Carter Presidential Center Librarian Tony Clark

Want to be part of the live audience for WABE’s literary program “Between the Lines”? You’ll have the chance on Thursday, November 12th at the recently renovated Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, when BTL host Valerie Jackson interviews Ray Anderson and David Owen.

Anderson is founder and CEO of Interface, INC., the world’s largest manufacturer of modular carpet for commercial and residential applications and a leading producer of commercial broadloom and commercial fabrics. He is known in environmental circles for his advanced and progressive stance on industrial ecology and sustainability. Since 1995, he has reduced Interface’s waste by a third, and plans to make the company sustainable by 2020. He is pioneering recycling efforts with recyclable nylon and polyester.  However, Anderson wasn’t always a friend of the environment. He had his epiphany in 1994 when he read Paul Hawken’s The Ecology of Commerce, which argues that the global industrial system is destroying the planet and that only industry leaders are powerful enough to stop its degradation.

In his own book, Confessions of a Radical Industrialist, Anderson gives practical ideas and measurable outcomes that every business can use, and shows that profit and sustainability are not mutually exclusive; businesses can improve their bottom lines and do right by the earth.

In Green Metropolis, author David Owen argues that the greenest community in the United States is not Portland, Oregon, or Snowmass, Colorado, but New York City. Residents of compact urban centers, David Owen shows, individually consume less oil, electricity, and water than other Americans. They live in smaller spaces, discard less trash, and, most important of all, spend far less time in automobiles.

Library Journal says Green Metropolis ”effectively connects the dots among oil, cars, public transportation, ethanol, rising food prices, and the role of plastic in modern life….Owen’s engaging, accessible book challenges the idea of green and urban living.” The Washington Post says Green Metropolis ” is a thoroughly alarming book, perhaps all the more so because Owen is so matter-of-fact: The facts alone are so discouraging that no rhetorical flourishes are necessary to underscore their urgency.”

Jackson will interview Anderson and Owen before a live audience. Following the taping, the audience will be able to ask their own questions. A book signing follows the program. Atlanta’s A Cappella Books will be selling copies of both authors’ books. 

Doors to the Carter Presidential Museum theater open at 6pm, the program begins at 7pm. The public is invited, and there is no admission charge. For more information, visit the Presidential Center’s website.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Recent Fiction Arrivals at Ponce

                                             

Calendar of Local Literary Events

By far the most comprehensive calendar of local book-related events we’ve seen is ”Atlanta Book Events,” which appears at the top of VERB, a website maintained by Decatur resident Daren Wang.

Be sure to bookmark VERB on your Internet access computer, so you can regularly check out the dozens of upcoming literary events around town.

Newest Fiction Arrivals at Ponce