BEA is about the future: the books that publishers are presenting, authors are signing, and booksellers and librarians are noting for the upcoming seasons. This year, as always, we walked the aisles to ask our favorite folks in the know what upcoming books they are excited about. The two novels … [Read more...]
I read books by only minority authors for a year. It showed me just how white our reading world is.
May 17, 2015 by
White authors reign in book reviews, bestseller lists, literary awards and Amazon.com recommendations. In 2014, I decided that for the entire year, I would not read books written by white authors. My goal was to address the reading practices I developed growing up in Australia, where white … [Read more...]
‘Women of Letters’ revives lost art with new voices
April 12, 2015 by
“Dear all the women over the entire span of human history, I wish I knew how to help. “But not much has changed in some respects; why is there even the so called progressive society when women are still blamed and shamed; I wish I knew what to do [...]” So said award-winning Australian poet … [Read more...]
Indonesia’s First User-Generated Film Something to Percolate Over
December 7, 2014 by
Readers are hard to please when their favorite books are brought onto the big screen. So to avoid falling short of expectations the team behind an upcoming film decided to produce it based entirely on user input. “Filosofi Kopi” (“Coffee Philosophy”), inspired by the 2006 novel of the same name, … [Read more...]
Unlocking Indonesia Through An Exploration of Its Literature
November 27, 2014 by
Reading novels is an excellent way of getting to know something about a country when one is newly arrived, doesn’t know much about it, and is going to be spending some time there. Certainly this was my experience coming to Indonesia for the first time some decades ago. Only at that time I was … [Read more...]