Links we liked for August 23

I've been away on a Scottish island odyssey for the last couple of weeks, but The Reader's flock of Internet starlings has been hard at work. Here are some of the juiciest worms they found:

Recommendation. Vintage's much-publicised series of literary pairings received a stylish boost with A.S. Byatt's recommendation of Middlemarch in The Guardian newspaper. Eliot's novel is paired with Byatt's Possession in the Vintage Classic Twins series. Both novels are of course "books for grown-up people".

Books for children seem to have been in the news a lot this summer. But however successful the Children's Book That Cannot Be Named may be, helping children to read is an ongoing challenge for many parents. One innovative service that might help is Tumblebooks, described as "an online collection of read-along titles for elementary, middle school, and high school students which features adjustable online text and complete audio narration. Sentences are highlited as they are being read and the pages turn automatically ... " The Reader Online has no connection with Tumblebooks, but it sounds like an interesting idea for a digital native generation.

On Literary Festivals. The Times carried an interesting piece about the growth of book festivals and quotes Armando Iannucci pitching for an intern job at The Reader: "People are hungry for substance and unafraid of ideas and big themes." We concur.

How To Write a Book. And for those budding (and otherwise) writers among you, here's a bombastic blog article by technology writer and consultant Scott Berkun in which he argues that anyone can write a book. It may suck, but ...

Walk of Shame Award. And talking of Scottish islands, Scotland on Sunday reported on the first day of the Edinburgh Festival on a conversation between Will Self and Philip Gourevitch, who recently held a month-long residency on the island of Jura, where George Orwell wrote 1984. His shocking admission when faced with the prospect of walking: "I haven't been to Barnhill. I drove up to the end of the road in a downpour and the guy who controls the gate wasn't around. I couldn't find anybody to open it so I could drive up there."

Posted by Chris