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Prestigious Harvard University said Wednesday it had removed human skin from the binding of a book held for over 90 years at one of its libraries. A copy of the 19th-century book “Des Destinées de l’Ame” — or Destinies of the Soul, a meditation on life after death — was found in 2014 to be bound in the skin of a deceased woman. Harvard said it had removed the binding and noted “past failures in […]
NEW YORK, May 14, 2023 (AFP) – As people brace for the disruptive impact of artificial intelligence on jobs and everyday living, those in the world of audio books say their field is already being transformed. AI has the ability to create human-sounding recordings — at assembly-line speed — while bypassing at least part of the services of the human professionals who for years have made a living with their voices. Many of them are […]
by Alexandra Del Peral and Eric Randolph Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — Deep in the vast La Sante prison in Paris, law student Morgane is discussing the classic novel “The Outsider” by Albert Camus with one of the prisoners. Adama finds some of the language tricky, but said reading is a “lifeboat”. “It allows me to escape, to think of something else. I imagine the scenes in my head. It’s as if I was […]
by Bahira Amin Agence France-Presse CAIRO, Egypt (AFP) — Thousands of Egyptian bibliophiles weave through a labyrinthine display of books, reviving an annual tradition at the Arab world’s largest book fair, but this year it comes at a steep cost. The 54th Cairo International Book Fair was overshadowed by a punishing economic crisis that has seen Egypt’s currency, the pound, halve in value and prices skyrocket in the past year. Organizers say the fair lured […]
BEIJING, China (AFP) — Deep in the heart of a valley surrounded by rocky hills, a wooden library sits just over a creek on the outskirts of Beijing, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Every weekend, hundreds of bookworms flock to Liyuan Library in Jiaojiehe village, a book sanctuary surrounded by chestnut, walnut and peach trees whose branches were used to decorate the building. The lush environment is what first drew architect Li Xiaodong to […]
by Hui Min Neo Agence France-Presse BERLIN, Germany (AFP) — Mickey Mouse may be Disney’s top star in most parts of the world, but in Germany, Donald Duck is king. More than 50 years after the cartoon featuring the hot-tempered duck arrived in the land of Goethe, it remains one of the bestselling comic title at the newsstands. Generations of children grew up with the so-called Lustiges Taschenbuch (which translates as Funny Paperback) featuring the […]
by Rodrigo Almonacid Agence France Presse BOGOTA, Colombia (AFP) — Emptying the bins of Colombia’s capital, Jose Alberto Gutierrez one day found a copy of the classic novel “Anna Karenina,” and kept it. That was 20 years ago — and the garbage man continued to collect Bogota’s discarded books, amassing 25,000 in a free library, swelled by donations. “I realized that people were throwing books away in the rubbish. I started to rescue them,” Gutierrez, […]
QUEZON City, Philippines (February 21) – It’s about time that we answer that age-old question? Which is better? The book or the movie? I remember when the first Harry Potter movie came out and how my sisters persuaded my mom to watch it. I was just nine years old back then and all I care about is to play all day long as long as I am allowed to do so. My sisters vowed to do […]
by Delil Souleiman Agence France Presse QAMISHLI, Syria (AFP) — Abdo Shehu sits in an office in Kurdish-majority Qamishli in northeast Syria, surrounded by copies of the first Western novel available in the city in his own language. The novel is “Snow” by French writer Maxence Fermine, the first fruits of a new project to translate international works of literature into a language that was effectively banned in Syria until recently. The 29-year-old is working […]
QUEZON City, Philippines (December 20) – Fandom. From the word itself we get the meaning. It is a collective of fans sharing the same interests, gathering together to enthusiastically celebrate the same through cosplaying, writing fan fictions, maintaining fandom wikis and others. Due to the power of the internet, no interest – be it books, movies, TV shows, memes, what-have-you – no matter how obscure – can go unnoticed. And fans from around the world […]
LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — J.K. Rowling, creator of the mass-selling “Harry Potter” books, made an impassioned plea Monday for Britons to vote to stay in the EU, warning in a blog posting against rising nationalism across the world. The British author, whose novels and films about the boy wizard have become a global phenomenon, said many of those backing a Brexit in Thursday’s EU referendum were making a protest “against everything about modern life […]
MANILA – As proof to the continuously strengthening Czech-Philippine ties in the field of culture and the arts, a brand new translation exchange program between the Philippines and the Czech Republic was recently launched. Spearheaded by the Czech Embassy in Manila and the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino, the sides will initiate the translation and publication of three Czech books in Filipino and reciprocally three books by Philippine writers in the Czech language. The Memorandum of Understanding […]
