My favorite bookish links from the week of October 3 – 7:
Stephen King Says People Shouldn’t Be Afraid of Clowns. Right.
“Despite the clown scare sweeping the nation, Stephen King wants you to chill about clowns. Sure, his novel “It” probably contributed to your lifelong fear of clowns. But now the author would very much like you to take a deep breath and calm down.”
New York Public Library for the Performing Arts Acquires Its First Hip-Hop Archive
“The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts houses the archives of dance titans like Merce Cunningham, Jerome Robbins and Mikhail Baryshnikov. Now it will also be a home to the history of hip-hop dance.”
The 50 Best Libraries in the United States
Elle has pulled together a list of each state’s best library. Make sure to check out Maryland’s — it’s gorgeous!
What Makes a Children’s Book Good?
“The conundrum of the “good” children’s book is best embodied by the apparently immortal—or maybe just undead—series “Goosebumps,” by R. L. Stine. “Goosebumps” is a series of horror novellas, the kid’s-lit equivalent of B-horror movies. It’s also one of the most successful franchises in the business, selling over three hundred and fifty million copies worldwide—which is a ludicrous, almost obscene, number…The only way to sell that many copies is if millions of kids actually and truly want to read the books. The conclusion is obvious: “Goosebumps” books are good, right?”
Seven Delightful Dickensian Words
“Charles Dickens captured Victorian society from the finest drawing rooms to the filthiest gutters, and his primary tool was language. As Bryan Kozlowski, author and member of the Dickens Fellowship puts it in his new book What the Dickens?!: Distinctly Dickensian Words and How to Use Them, “Dickens wallowed in words like no other.” Kozlowski has collected 200 words used by Dickens, some of them drawn from the life around him, some of his own invention, and puts them in the context of 19th century England and Dickens’s body of work.“
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