Mary Daniels Brown

My mother always insisted that, as soon as I was old enough to sit up, she’d find me in my crib after my nap babbling away, with a Little Golden Book on my lap. I’ve had my nose in a book ever since. I grew up in a small town, with the tiny town library literally in my backyard. As an only child in an unhappy home, I found comfort and companionship in books. As an adult I wanted to be Harry Potter, although I admit I’m more Hermione. My life has been a series of research projects. Reading has taught me that human lives are deliciously messy and that “it’s complicated” isn’t a punchline.

A Slight Shift in Perspective

The “reframing” power of literature comes from the story’s not being exactly the same as the reader’s story. In fitting the two together, the reader has to shift his point of view and so moves out of what seemed like an immovable and rigid framework. In this way, reading breeds tolerance and sympathy for people

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Books | Who buys books? 40-year-old women

Books | Who buys books? 40-year-old women and others | Seattle Times Newspaper: Bowker, a global firm that tracks people’s book-buying habits, reports some interesting statistics about book-buying in the U.S. And, in what is no surprise at all, women make 64% of all book purchases.

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The Growth of Ebooks

Publishers Weekly is reporting that publisher Random House doubled its profits in the first half of 2010 because of two main factors: Stieg Larsson’s massively successful trilogy (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest): “Random has sold a combined 6.5 copies in the

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Another Weak Quarter from Borders; Expands Non-book Offerings

  Another Weak Quarter from Borders; Expands Non-book Offerings: Watch for changes as Borders scrambles to reposition itself in the consumer world: Capital expenditures in the quarter increased to $7.7 million from $1.2 million as the company invested in digital programs and Borders said its ‘Area-e’ digital section will be opened in all stores by

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Audience Picks: Top 100 ‘Killer Thrillers’

Audience Picks: Top 100 ‘Killer Thrillers’ : NPR: The results are in! The NPR audience nominated some 600 novels to our ‘Killer Thrillers’ poll and cast more than 17,000 ballots. The final roster of winners is a diverse one to say the least, ranging in style and period from Dracula to The Da Vinci Code,

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Booksellers Urged to Participate in Banned Books Week

Booksellers Urged to Participate in Banned Books Week: There were 460 incidents of people attempting to ban books from libraries last year, according to the American Library Association, including a recent one where a group of parents succeeded in banning an anthology of writings by gay youth from the library of a New Jersey high

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Kindle Cost Cut to $139 as Price War Begins

Kindle Cost Cut to $139 as Price War Begins – NYTimes.com: Amazon is hoping to convince even casual readers that they need a digital reading device. By firing another shot in an e-reader price war leading up to the year-end holiday shopping season, the e-commerce giant turned consumer electronics manufacturer is also signaling it intends

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“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”: casting the new film version

“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”: casting the new film version Marjorie Kehe is reporting on The Christian Science Monitor‘s book blog that Daniel Craig has signed to portray Mikael Blomkvist, the male protagonist, in the Hollywood version of Swedish author Stieg Larsson’s book The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Meanwhile, the search continues for

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Taming Time Travel – Science News

Taming Time Travel – Science News: Novelists and screenwriters know that time travel can be accomplished in all sorts of ways: a supercharged DeLorean, Hermione’s small watch and, most recently, a spacetime-bending hot tub have allowed fictional heroes to jump between past and future. But physicists know that time travel is more than just a

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