Will the Master’s Tools Dismantle the Master’s House?

A new app that uses Amazon’s search function to find independent book stores hopes so.
Created to be easy to install and use right on your web browser, the app bookindy App, promotes independent book stores using the very site that is designed to put small book sellers out of business. The ingenious device, which installs directly to Chrome browsers, monitors your searches on Amazon and then finds the same book in local book shops. It even tells you how far you are from the nearest store and whether the book can be found for a lower price at a brick and mortar store.

The company’s slogan, “browse Amazon, buy independent” is designed to appeal to book lovers who are uncomfortable with Amazon’s practices of squeezing small publishers and shops out of the business. Whether buyers will be willing to give up…

Stop Shaming Guilty-Pleasure Reads

Blogger and Self-Described Book Nerd Olivia Lanaras on Labeling Books and Shaming Readers

For every one article written about the love of a guilty pleasure book like 50 Shades of Grey or Twilight, there are two that slam and shame it.

“The writing is just not up to par, the characters are unbelievable, and the sex verges on the comical.”
“Think of it as the “Downton Abbey” of bondage, designed neither to menace nor to offend but purely to cosset the fatigued imagination.”
“Fifty shades of bad writing”

Without a doubt, the authors behind these works are not the second coming of Jane Austen. I have tried reading them and just couldn’t do it. In fact, most of the lines are absolutely cringe-worthy. However, labeling these works as invalid or unworthy of being considered works of literature is not only…

A short history of the sonnet form, with some fun facts about its development

Writing an introduction to the sonnet throws out a number of questions, so in this post we will ask what might be considered the essential questions about the sonnet form, and provide some answers. Who invented the sonnet? What form does the sonnet take? These sorts of questions. They actually throw out some surprising answers…

I developed my love of literature as a small boy. I’ve happy memories of sitting on my grandfather’s knee as he regailed me with Enid Blyton’s “The Famous Five” and “Grimm’s Fairy Tales”. Being blind it was a real treat to have print books read aloud as I was unable to read the printed word. Later I learned to read braille and devoured the books in my school and (later) college library. I can still recollect sitting engrossed with a battered braille edition of “Palgrave’s Golden Treasury” on my knee. One of the advantages of being blind is the ability to read in the dark and I well recollect reading after the lights had been turned out at my boarding school when I should have been in the land of nod!
Today I do most of my reading on my Amazon Kindle which is equipped with a text to speech…