#materiality-of-books

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Books
fromSFGATE
22 hours ago

SF library book checked out before the 1906 earthquake is finally returned

A soot-stained copy of Bret Harte's poetry, lost since the 1906 earthquake, was rediscovered in the Mechanics' Institute library.
Arts
fromPsychology Today
13 hours ago

Painting With Blood: Who Does It and Who Collects It

Blood is used as a medium in contemporary art, challenging traditional boundaries of artistic practice.
fromKALTBLUT Magazine
1 day ago

Xinyu Hou: Holding Ground! Designing for the Lived Body - KALTBLUT Magazine

Xinyu Hou designs for adaptation, working with the body as it actually behaves under stress, rather than how it is only expected to perform for an audience.
Fashion & style
Film
fromFuncheap
2 days ago

Librarians on Film: Clips + Commentary (SF Main Library)

Librarians are depicted in various ways in cinema, showcasing both stereotypes and positive representations through selected film scenes.
Brooklyn
fromBrooklyn Paper
3 days ago

Building stories and community: The rise of the Brooklyn Book Bodega * Brooklyn Paper

Brooklyn Book Bodega aims to increase access to books for children and families in New York City, addressing disparities in book availability.
Design
fromDesign Milk
4 days ago

An Argument for Interior Design with Neuroaesthetics in Mind

Interior design should prioritize functional aesthetics to enhance mental health, creativity, and interpersonal connections through a new field called Neuroarchitecture.
Media industry
fromIntelligencer
5 days ago

Does the New York Times Need a Magazine?

T Magazine thrives on Hanya Yanagihara's unique vision, attracting luxury advertisers despite its niche appeal and limited readership.
Travel
fromConde Nast Traveler
5 days ago

How I Travel: Emma Straub Has a Favorite Bookstore in Every City

Traveling disrupts routines and allows people to explore different versions of themselves, as experienced by Emma Straub on cruises.
Writing
fromArtforum
6 days ago

Ben Lerner's Transcription and the Fictional Readymade

Ben Lerner's new novel, Transcription, showcases his restless creativity and innovative formal experimentation in fiction.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
22 hours ago

Too hot to handle? Why it's time for straight male authors to rediscover sex

Straight male writers often avoid writing about sex, fearing it may seem exploitative or gratuitous, unlike their female counterparts.
Arts
fromHyperallergic
3 days ago

Required Reading

Compton's art center aims to support formerly incarcerated artists and promote rehabilitation through creative expression.
Digital life
fromwww.dw.com
1 week ago

The pleasure of books in the digital age

The debate over digital archiving versus physical books highlights the unique engagement and sensory experience that books provide in a digital age.
Fashion & style
fromI Love Typography Ltd
1 week ago

A Brief History of the Dust Jacket - I Love Typography Ltd

Dust jackets evolved from protective covers to marketing tools, first appearing in the 1760s and gaining popularity in the 1920s with advances in color printing.
fromArtnet News
3 days ago

The Philosopher Who Predicted Our Post-Literate Art Moment | Artnet News

Flusser believed that the transformation brought about by new media would reshape the world, leading to a consciousness defined by images rather than the written word.
Arts
Books
fromKqed
3 days ago

11 New Books for April That Step Inside Someone Else's World

Keefe's latest book examines modern London's ties to the financial elite through a tragic incident involving a young man's death in the Thames.
Books
fromwww.npr.org
4 days ago

11 new books in April offer a chance to step inside someone else's world

Books provide an alternative to doomscrolling, offering perspectives on anxiety, corruption, and reality.
Arts
fromArtnet News
5 days ago

Lost Cecil Beaton and Lee Miller Photos Turn Up in Old Scrapbook

A previously unknown scrapbook of over 150 unseen photographs by Cecil Beaton and Lee Miller has been sold to the University of Oxford's Bodleian Library.
Books
fromThe Atlantic
4 days ago

Ghostwriting Is Good, Actually

Ghostwriting, when done by humans, can provide valuable support to authors and help share unique perspectives.
Arts
fromHyperallergic
1 week ago

Required Reading

Calida Rawles' art explores the duality of water as both healing and destructive within the Black diaspora's history.
fromwww.archdaily.com
4 weeks ago

Poetry Anthology of Light / P.M.A.Studio

This project involved the reconstruction of a dilapidated building located in Guangzhou's old town along Tongfu Xi Road, a historic street established in 1926. Once vibrant, this area has suffered from significant neglect over the years, with many buildings falling into disrepair, creating safety hazards that forced both residents and businesses to leave.
Renovation
History
fromMedievalists.net
4 weeks ago

New Medieval Books: Widow City - Medievalists.net

Late medieval Italian widows mourned their spouses and navigated their lives through religious or secular paths, evolving from allegorical subjects to prominent authors who reshaped public discourse on widowed identity.
Design
fromYanko Design - Modern Industrial Design News
3 weeks ago

5 Best Surreal Bookstores That Make You Forget You're Inside a Building - Yanko Design

Exceptional bookstores transcend retail by using architectural design inspired by nature and astronomy to transform reading spaces into immersive environments where books become spatial protagonists rather than products.
Arts
fromHyperallergic
1 week ago

10 Art Books for Your Spring Reading List

Molly Crabapple's book on the Jewish Bund and Susan Simensky Bietila's memoir highlight historical narratives through art and activism.
Graphic design
fromItsnicethat
1 month ago

Lydia Chodosh probes design rules through archiving and cataloguing

Designer Lydia Chodosh interrogates how knowledge is acquired and transmitted through language, archival systems, and interdisciplinary design practice informed by literature, publishing, and visual communication.
Books
fromConde Nast Traveler
2 weeks ago

Book Lovers, These Towns Were Made for You

Cities are nurturing a return to reading with bookstores, literary festivals, and spaces for readers to enjoy books.
Intellectual property law
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

Thousands of authors publish empty' book in protest over AI using their work

Thousands of authors published an empty book protesting AI firms using their work without permission or payment, demanding government protection of creative copyright.
France news
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

Worried about the demise of reading? Come to France, where we're up to our eyes in print | Alexander Hurst

XXI/Revue21 represents a vital counterforce to digital fragmentation by publishing literary long-form journalism that prioritizes authorial presence, reader trust, and substantive narrative reporting in physical form.
Design
fromItsnicethat
1 month ago

A slow alternative to mainstream fashion media, Booklook is the magazine you can wear and read

Booklook develops publications using folding as a construction method to create objects that function as both readable magazines and wearable garments, with material research exploring the boundary between textile and paper.
History
fromMedievalists.net
1 month ago

Medieval Manuscripts to Be Displayed at EXPO Chicago 2026 - Medievalists.net

Medieval illuminated manuscripts from the 15th-16th centuries will be featured at EXPO Chicago 2026, showcasing how collectors and audiences continue to value medieval book art today.
fromAdvocate.com
2 weeks ago

Heated Rivalry's success may reignite LGBTQ+ publishing

"I've heard some people say, 'Oh, I've watched the show,' or 'I've read the series, and that was the first queer romance I ever read,' says Stacy Boyd, executive editor at Harlequin Books, who works directly with Reid. 'So it's opening doors that haven't been opened.'"
Books
fromInsideHook
1 month ago

Are the Humanities Poised for an Academic Comeback?

Many colleges and universities have made cuts in these programs, often bolstering STEM programs at their expense. It's a situation that has sparked no small amount of impassioned editorials. The headline of a recent article at The Guardian by Alice Speri referenced an 'existential crisis at U.S. universities,' and Speri's reporting features numerous examples of undergraduate and graduate programs facing cuts or outright elimination.
Higher education
Arts
fromColossal
1 month ago

You'll Need a Magnifying Glass to Read Some of the World's Smallest Books at the V&A

Queen Mary's Dolls' House at Windsor Castle contains nearly 600 miniature books designed by leading craftspeople, representing a remarkable collection of scaled literary works from the early 20th century.
fromIndependent
4 weeks ago

Fewer people are now reading for pleasure - just how worried should we be?

With literacy rates declining across OECD countries, building healthy habits around books is truly essential. Allowing reading at dinner started as one of those on-the-spot parental solutions. Letting them have a copy of Bunny Vs Monkey or The Beano while they ate seemed like a more ethical solution for keeping them in their chairs for the duration of the meal than, say, duct tape.
Books
Arts
fromHyperallergic
1 month ago

Required Reading

Women's strikes, graffiti activism, and museum repatriation efforts represent diverse forms of contemporary protest and cultural reckoning across multiple global contexts.
Books
fromThe Atlantic
1 month ago

How Not to Recommend a Book

Reader's advisory—the skill of matching specific books to individual readers' preferences—is essential for successful book club experiences and literary recommendations across libraries, bookstores, and online platforms.
Artificial intelligence
fromFuturism
2 months ago

Anthropic Knew the Public Would Be Disgusted by How It Was Destroying Physical Books, Secret Documents Reveal

Anthropic bought, shredded, and scanned millions of used books to train AI, relying on first-sale doctrine and a transformative-use ruling to avoid paying authors.
Books
fromOpen Culture
1 month ago

How to Rescue a Wet, Damaged Book: A Handy Visual Primer

Syracuse University Libraries provides practical tips for salvaging water-damaged books through a visual guide with both intuitive and specialized restoration techniques.
fromItsnicethat
1 month ago

Absurd, unsettling or erotic? Carl Ander's archive of instructional imagery forms an obscure new photobook

invite new readings; at times absurd or humorous, at others unsettlingly violent or erotic
Photography
#spotify
Writing
fromThe Atlantic
2 months ago

Taking the Internet Novel Offline

Depicting internet-mediated life requires new narrative strategies that ground online behavior in familiar forms like family drama to keep readers engaged.
Renovation
fromArchDaily
2 months ago

Rooms as Heritage: How Interior Typologies Carry Cultural Memory

Cultural memory often survives in domestic interiors and everyday practices rather than visible architectural facades.
History
fromI Love Typography Ltd
3 months ago

Heart-shaped Books - I Love Typography Ltd

Cultures historically assigned varied meanings to the heart, shaping embalming practices, sacrificial rites, devotional symbolism, and the heart-shaped pictogram's development.
Books
fromThe Atlantic
1 month ago

Six Books You'll Have to Discuss With a Friend

Reading in public creates social connections and marks readers as members of an enthusiastic community that spans all walks of life and geographic locations.
Books
fromThe Atlantic
1 month ago

Books Are Meant to Be Slow

The slowness of reading books is a virtue, not a weakness, offering contemplative depth that digital media cannot replicate.
fromMedievalists.net
2 months ago

Rules of a Medieval Library - Medievalists.net

When universities began to emerge in Europe during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, they soon became important centres of knowledge. Their libraries could hold hundreds of books, and many of the most valuable volumes were kept under close control - sometimes even chained to desks. We have few details about how medieval university libraries operated, but a revealing set of rubric headings survives from the University of Angers in western France.
History
fromKqed
1 month ago

10 New Books in March That Offer Mental Vacations

A veteran war correspondent, Gopal earned finalist nods for the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award for what the Pulitzer jury described as his "vivid, haunting and courageous" first book, No Good Men Among the Living, which conveyed the fallout of the war in Afghanistan through the personal stories of just a few Afghans.
Books
Writing
fromThe Atlantic
1 month ago

The 'Hopeless Labor' of Writing

AI chatbots and delivery robots threaten traditional writing by offering frictionless ease, undermining the pedagogical value of sustained effort and arduous composition.
Design
fromdesignboom | architecture & design magazine
1 month ago

traditional european library transforms compact office into a layered reading space

A compact residential library uses deep crimson millwork, saturated color, layered materials, patterned wallpaper, and integrated lighting to create depth and a focused reading interior.
fromColossal
1 month ago

Radioposter Launches Paper-fi: Analog Books with Synchronized Soundtracks

Radioposter has built what it calls Paper-fi: physical books with synchronized audio soundtracks that follow readers in real time as they turn each page. No chips embedded in the paper, no QR codes to scan. The system uses patented computer vision and other modes through a smartphone or smart glasses to track your place in the book and play the corresponding audio.
Arts
Books
fromHarvard Gazette
1 month ago

That's a book? - Harvard Gazette

Italo Calvino used tarot card decks as a computational system to generate interconnected narratives, predating modern AI by decades and demonstrating how structured systems can create complex literary works.
fromMedievalists.net
2 months ago

New Medieval Books: Chasing the Pearl-Manuscript - Medievalists.net

This is a book about a book: the small, cropped, somewhat ragged but brightly illustrated volume now known formally, and rather forbiddingly, as British Library MS Cotton Nero A.x/2. The fame and beauty of its four Middle English poems have given it sobriquets beyond the shelfmark, however, which are more familiar and intimate: it is also the Gawain-Manuscript or, as I will call it, the Pearl-Manuscript.
History
Books
fromianVisits
1 month ago

New exhibition explores how early printing developed into readable books

William Caxton revolutionized English book printing in the late 15th century, transforming books from elite luxury items into affordable, widely accessible products through rapid technological advancement.
Arts
fromHyperallergic
1 month ago

Required Reading

Artists explore themes of Black resistance, marronage, and ecological history through natural materials and portraiture while navigating creative practice alongside full-time work.
#reading-habits
#art-books
Books
fromThe Atlantic
1 month ago

How to Put Sex in a Novel

Contemporary literary fiction increasingly avoids depicting heterosexual intimacy while queer novelists freely explore sex's complexities, as exemplified by Jan Saenz's unconventional novel about selling experimental orgasm-inducing pills.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

What we're reading: writers and readers on the books they enjoyed in February

Claire Baglin's 'On the Clock' uses narrow focus on fast-food work to reveal profound truths about contemporary alienation and precarity with compassion and emotional depth.
fromPsychology Today
2 months ago

Your Life's Work Preserved: Why Collectors Are Going Virtual

The traditional museum experience, pausing in front of an object, and absorbing its history visually or by reading its description, has long shaped how collectors and others relate to cultural treasures. Yet, over the last few decades, digital technology has quietly rewritten many of those rules, changing not only how collections are exhibited but also how they are documented, preserved, and even inherited.
Arts
Books
fromThe Atlantic
1 month ago

When Did Literature Get Less Dirty?

Philip Roth's Zuckerman Unbound functioned as a response to the controversial reception of Portnoy's Complaint, with Roth's protagonist expressing regret over writing sexually explicit material that drew accusations of anti-Semitism and misogyny.
fromHyperallergic
2 months ago

Required Reading

Sprouting from the roof of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, artist Rose B. Simpson's newly installed bronze sculpture "Behold" has its gaze fixed on the cityscape before it. The Tewa of Khaʼpʼoe Ówîngeh artist, herself a mother, crafted a tender portrait of an interconnected parent and child that "asks us to be human with each other, to change our narrative through wonder, witness and a foundation in the soft warmth of our humanity," she said in a statement.
Arts
Arts
fromHyperallergic
2 months ago

When Artists Lose Their Archives

An artist lost a storage unit and later discovered parts of their work were sold online without notification, stripping authorship and meaning.
Arts
fromHyperallergic
1 month ago

Required Reading

Lunar New Year festivities and California's new Historic South L.A. Cultural District underscore renewed recognition of local arts, community celebration, and plans for a monument.
Arts
fromHyperallergic
2 months ago

Required Reading

A 19th-century Quran from Arturo Schomburg's collection was used at Zohran Mamdani's swearing-in, symbolizing dignity for immigrant and working-class New Yorkers.
Arts
fromHyperallergic
1 month ago

Required Reading

Artists use playful, empathetic imagery to challenge ageist and gendered stereotypes and to restore community and resilience amid destruction.
Books
fromInsideHook
1 month ago

RIP the Mass Market Paperback, Man's Hottest Accessory

Mass-market pocket paperbacks are vanishing due to digital formats and distributor exits, reducing affordable physical-book access and diminishing books' cultural and aesthetic role.
Books
fromVulture
1 month ago

The Next Heated Rivalry Book Got Delayed Another Year

Rachel Reid delays the final Heated Rivalry book from September 2026 to June 2027 due to worsening Parkinson's symptoms affecting her writing ability.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

Last year I read 137 books': could setting targets help you put down your phone and pick up a book?

Public tracking and gamified reading goals risk turning reading into a competitive, metric-driven activity that can undermine enjoyment, deep engagement and sustainable reading habits.
#audiobooks
fromThe Atlantic
2 months ago

A Biography Without 'The Boring Bits'

Sophia Stewart poses a choice that many biographers struggle with: "what to do with the boring bits."
Books
Books
fromThe Atlantic
2 months ago

C'mon, Professors, Assign the Hard Reading

Assigning whole novels in literature classes restores deep reading, rebuilds attention, and enables students to engage meaningfully despite technological distractions.
Books
fromPoynter
1 month ago

When newspapers cut book coverage, communities lose more than reviews - Poynter

Newspaper book coverage is rapidly shrinking despite a $30 billion publishing industry, with major outlets cutting book sections and reducing book-review staff.
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

The best recent science fiction, fantasy and horror review roundup

Subsequently, runaway children turned the valley into a fortress, surviving on food they could catch or grow, with occasional forays into the towns below. Riley has heard the rumours, but it is only when she sees a green-clad boy or is it a girl? hovering outside her bedroom window offering directions on how to find Nowhere that she realises this might be her chance to escape and save her little brother from their sadistic guardian.
Books
fromItsnicethat
2 months ago

The Bible, iPhones and hardware manuals inspired Mindy Seu's book about sex on the internet

The internet, since its very inception, has been a conduit for pleasure, sex and sexuality. From early erotic ASCII art and hook-up sites, to the proliferation of porn sites in the 1980s and 90s, despite attempts to curtail it, shadowban it and commercialise it from the top down, sex remains an underlying force in our online world, fuelling intimate moments of screentime and alternative forms of income generation.
Books
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