Kazuo Ishiguro Receives Oscar Nomination for Living
Nobel prize-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro has received an Oscar nomination for his adapted screenplay for the film Living. Ishiguro is now the third winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature to also earn an Oscar nomination. The first was George Bernard Shaw and the second was Bob Dylan. Ishiguro won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2017.
Egyptians Offered Loans to Buy Books as Inflation Soars
With book prices more than doubling, the Egyptian Publishers Association have announced that customers can now pay for a book over the course of nine months, paying 1.5% interest. Egyptian authors are hoping the initiative will help boost flagging sales. Recently, many authors in Egypt have drastically changed their stories and/or cut down on characters and descriptions to be more economical in their writing. “My book’s been downsized, slimmed down to just 60 pages from around 100, because of the rising printing costs,” author Dina Afifi, who writes popular fiction for teens, told BBC. Even so, readers are often turning to counterfeit books that are sold at stalls on the streets for prices ranging between 50 and 100 Egyptian pounds. The government says it’s doing what it can to bring down prices.
Florida Teachers Forced to Remove or Cover Up Books to Avoid Felony Charges
Following a recent Florida law that prohibits material unless deemed appropriate by a librarian, or “certified media specialist,” school teachers in Manatee county have been forced to remove books from their classrooms or physically covering them up. In order to determine if the books meet the guidelines of the new Florida law, known as HB 1467, certified media specialists must undergo an online training developed by Florida’s department of education. But with only a few media specialists available, the vetting process is taking a long time. Meanwhile, teachers are condemning the new guidelines.
The Manatee Education Association union president, Pat Barber, told local TV station Fox 13, “We have people who have spent their entire careers building their classroom libraries based on their professional and educational experience and understanding of the age of the children they teach…Now, their professional judgment and training are being substituted for the opinion of anyone who wishes to review and challenge the books. We’re focused on things that cause teachers to want to walk away from education because they can’t focus on their mission of educating children.”
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10 of the Weirdest Moments from Prince Harry’s Memoir
These ten moments from Spare are among the weirdest in this bestselling and highly anticipated memoir from Prince Harry.
