Tag Archives: Literature

Books & Reading, Podcasts, Web & Technology, Weblogs (Blogs)

25+ Best Book Podcasts — Best Podcasts for Book Lovers | Town & Country

By Emily Burack, Feb 23, 2022

From article…

If you love to read, podcasts may not be your first choice of medium; however, there are a number of incredible book podcasts out there.

So just for literature lovers looking to step outside the book, we rounded up our favorite podcasts—from a grown-up version of Reading Rainbow to conversations recorded live from the most famous bookstore in Paris to a project centered on immersive poetry reading.

There are podcasters who only read celebrity memoirs, interviewers who only speak with debut authors, and Harry Potter super fans who are rereading the series, one chapter at a time.

Without further ado, here are 27 recommendations for book podcasts spanning genre (fantasy! romance! classics!) and location (books in translation! Indigenous authors! books from the Middle East!). There’s something for everyone here—just as long as you love to read.

Source: 25+ Best Book Podcasts — Best Podcasts for Book Lovers

Arts & Humanities, Books & Reading, Film & Movies, Games, Libraries, Science & Health, Television, Web & Technology

Is there a scientific case for literature? A neuroscientist novelist argues yes | Salon.com

Illogical as it might seem, there may be an evolutionary reason that humans love consuming fiction

By Erik Hoel, April 18, 2021 11:30PM (UTC)
A parent and child tell each other stories inside a cosy tent lit up in a dark room of their home (Getty Images)

You do something strange every day. You consume fictions. It’s such an omnipresent habit, shared by all, that we rarely consider the oddity of it.

I’m a fiction writer myself, but I’m also a neuroscientist, so this activity fascinates me. What’s the cognitive utility of learning things that aren’t true? We’re evolved biological beings who need to understand the world to survive, and yet all facts we learn about Hogwarts are literally false. How can any of this information be useful?

Still, fictions surround us. I grew up in my mother’s independent bookstore and I’ve been a writer since I can remember. A significant change in my lifetime is that media, like TV channels, books, magazines, and films, have been condensed into a single one-stop shop: the screen. I call this the supersensorium. Screens are now supermarkets for entertaining experiences. Such easy access to fictions means we often binge watch, we stuff our faces.

The average American adult spends about half their day consuming screen media.

–from article

Source: Is there a scientific case for literature? A neuroscientist novelist argues yes | Salon.com

Arts & Humanities, Books & Reading, Current Affairs, Film & Movies, Food & Drink, Love & Relationships, Memories & History, Pleasures

Review: ‘Hemingway’ Is a Big Two-Hearted Reconsideration – The New York Times

Ken Burns’s latest documentary, premiering Monday on PBS, traces the complicated connections between the person, the persona and the stories

Ernest Hemingway at his home in Cuba in the 1940s. A new PBS documentary by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick explores the author’s triumphs and vulnerabilities.Credit…John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum

By James Poniewozik, Published April 2, 2021, Updated April 3, 2021, 12:16 a.m.

Hemingway, NYT Critic’s Pick

One of the more unsettling moments in “Hemingway,” the latest documentary from Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, finds Ernest Hemingway, big-game hunter, chronicler of violence and seeker of danger, doing one thing that terrified him: speaking on television.

It is 1954, and the author, who survived airplane crashes (plural) earlier that year in Africa, had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. He agreed to an interview with NBC on the condition that he receive the questions in advance and read his answers from cue cards.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/02/arts/television/review-hemingway-ken-burns.htmlhttps://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/02/arts/television/review-hemingway-ken-burns.html

Arts & Humanities, Books & Reading, Film & Movies, Love & Relationships, Memories & History, Science & Health

Eight of Literature’s Most Powerful Inventions—and the Neuroscience Behind How They Work | Innovation | Smithsonian Magazine

These reoccuring story elements have proven effects on our imagination, our emotions and other parts of our psyche

By Angus Fletcher, smithsonianmag.com
March 10, 2021

What if literature was an invention for making us happier and healthier? (wenjin chen/Getty Images)

Shortly after 335 B.C., within a newly built library tucked just east of Athens’ limestone city walls, a free-thinking Greek polymath by the name of Aristotle gathered up an armful of old theater scripts. As he pored over their delicate papyrus in the amber flicker of a sesame lamp, he was struck by a revolutionary idea: What if literature was an invention for making us happier and healthier? The idea made intuitive sense; when people felt bored, or unhappy, or at a loss for meaning, they frequently turned to plays or poetry. And afterwards, they often reported feeling better. But what could be the secret to literature’s feel-better power? What hidden nuts-and-bolts conveyed its psychological benefits?

After carefully investigating the matter, Aristotle inked a short treatise that became known as the Poetics. In it, he proposed that literature was more than a single invention; it was many inventions, each constructed from an innovative use of story. Story includes the countless varieties of plot and character—and it also includes the equally various narrators that give each literary work its distinct style or voice. Those story elements, Aristotle hypothesized, could plug into our imagination, our emotions, and other parts of our psyche, troubleshooting and even improving our mental function.

Source: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/eight-literatures-most-powerful-inventions-and-neuroscience-behind-how-they-work-180977168/