Links we liked for July 28, 2007
Here are a few links you might have missed in the last couple of weeks:
Sue Bursztynski's review of HP7 for January Magazine was one of the most balanced I came across in a week when J.K. Rowling's final Harry Potter novel broke sales records around the world and for a while even competed with the weather for the attention of British news journalists. That's how big it was. John Crace provides a digested read: "Harry knew he was up against it this time. A favourite character from an earlier book had been killed off within the first 80 pages. That Rowling woman meant business."
On a not unrelated subject, as anyone who waded through HP5 will testify, Salon had an excellent article on the unsung heroines and heroes of the literary world: 'Let us now praise editors'.
The BBC covered the problem of literacy with a rather sad piece about parents who struggle with reading to their children. Here's the shocking statistic:
More than 10% of the 1,000 parents asked had struggled to understand some words in the stories they had read to their five to 10-year-old children.
Looking at it more positively, at least they are reading. Here's the link to the BBC article.
Would Jane Austen get published by Penguin as a new author in 2007? Here's the answer.
And finally, from Language Log, intellectual cereal packets. I insist cereal packets taught me to read. I'm not sure how that might have worked if Martin Amis and Immanuel Kant had featured. Here's the link.
Share
Related Articles

Shared Reading in Wirral Libraries: ‘As a kid people read stories to you but as an adult you lose that – and it’s a fantastic thing to do!’
Two Strategic Librarians for Wirral Libraries, Kathleen McKean and Diane Mitchell have been working in partnership with the UK’s largest…

Pat: ‘You don’t need to be an academic – it’s about going on your gut feeling about a story or poem’
National charity The Reader runs two popular weekly 90-minute Shared Reading group at one of the UK’s most innovative libraries,…

Sue: ‘I like the fact you’re not judged by anyone, we have a laugh and learn a lot from each other’
National wellbeing charity The Reader is celebrating the first year of a second weekly Shared Reading group at one of the…