Wednesday, April 16

Tag: good stories

Book about “John & Paul” comes out
Books & Media

Book about “John & Paul” comes out

Beatlemania - John & Paul In our world, when we chat about music, we often get stuck on things like sales numbers, streaming stats, and how songs rank on charts. But honestly, that’s not the best way to really get or talk about music.Ian Leslie’s book “John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs” isn’t about that at all. Instead, it dives into how two incredibly talented guys helped each other out, pushed each other, taught each other, and learned from one another.Looking back at famous composer duos before John Lennon and Paul McCartney—like Rodgers and Hart or Bacharach and David—you’d usually see one person making the music while the other worked on the lyrics. But John and Paul flipped that script; they both pitched in on the music and the words. Right from the start, they agreed to...
Michael Caine writes "Don't look back"
Books & Media

Michael Caine writes "Don't look back"

Michael Caine the Writer Michael Caine knows a thing or two about success. With a crazy film career that has spanned over 70 years, he’s bagged two Academy Awards. On top of that, he’s dipped his toes into the restaurant game and even penned a few books.In his latest book, "Don’t Look Back, You’ll Trip Over: My Guide to Life," the 91-year-old touches on a bunch of topics, from how he got his start in acting to how a director, Christopher Nolan, picked him for his Batman trilogy.Caine figured out pretty early on that no matter how hard he worked, there would always be folks who were better and some who weren't as talented in the acting world."Jealousy is a nasty thing that can really drag people down," he says. "If you start thinking, 'I need to be better than him as an actor,' you’re...
BookTok reviews "Sunrise on the Reaping"
Books & Media

BookTok reviews "Sunrise on the Reaping"

BookTok likes "Sunrise on the Reaping" Suzanne Collins has just dropped her new prequel to the Hunger Games series called Sunrise on the Reaping and fans have been buzzing about it since it came out. It’s the first new entry since 2020's The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. People are surprised by some of the plot twists and are watching the films on their laptops getting all emotional during scenes that hit differently now that they've read the prequel. Now I know it’s easy to poke fun at BookTok if you’re not into it but I bring up these quick reactions to show how much has changed since Collins released the first Hunger Games book back in September 2008 which was just a couple months before Barack Obama got elected. There was no TikTok or Instagram back then and Twitter and Tumblr were s...
Women Writers Discuss the Power of Stories
Books & Media

Women Writers Discuss the Power of Stories

The impact of storytelling and why reading and readers matter Last month a popular literary event brought together four Asian women authors: Gong Ji-yeong from South Korea Li Zishu from Malaysia and Qiao Ye and Liao Jing from China. This event organized by the Beijing October Arts and Literature Publishing House attracted over 1.4 million viewers through its live online broadcast. In a two-hour chat they dove into topics like how to start a writing career the link between writing and reality and the messages writers share through their work. Qiao who won China's top literary award the Mao Dun Literary Prize in 2023 for her novel Bao Shui (Precious Water) says she kicked off her writing journey while teaching in a small village in Henan province. "When I was about 20 I felt lonely and unsat...
Is AI really a writer?
Books & Media

Is AI really a writer?

AI is Evolving Are sci-fi authors thinking about using AI to help them out now that AI is already stepping in to handle some writing jobs that humans used to do? Famous sci-fi writer Liu Cixin, who’s known for The Three-Body Problem, says that right now it’s not really happening, but he’s not sure what the future holds. “At the moment I don’t plan to use any AI-generated stuff in my writing,” Liu mentioned in a video at a sci-fi forum in Beijing this December. “But with how fast AI is developing, it could be pretty skilled in writing five to ten years from now. By then, I might think about it and be open to getting some AI help.” Liu, who has won a Hugo Award, believes that if AI keeps advancing at this pace, he and other sci-fi writers could end up being “the last generation of authors wh...
The Earth Used to Be Green
Books & Media

The Earth Used to Be Green

A Jurassic-era story about a Dinosaur Picture yourself as a paleontologist investigating the Jurassic-era rocks in Utah. You stumble upon the remains of a massive herbivorous dinosaur measuring 20 meters in length and weighing 20 tons. Now, ponder this: How could such a creature reach such enormous size? According to science writer and paleontologist Riley Black, the key to this lies in the availability of plants.Centering on plants, Black skillfully employs scientific insights to bring to life ancient environments inhabited by some of our beloved prehistoric creatures. Each chapter is structured as a vignette, accompanied by an appendix that clarifies the scientific concepts underpinning Black’s narrative decisions, showcasing a distinct time and setting. When the Earth was Complete...
Books to Read in January
Books & Media

Books to Read in January

4 Books of January "Playworld" It’s been a whole fifteen years since Ross’s debut novel Mr. Peanut, if you can believe it. He’s back with an equally ambitious, if somewhat less deadly, anti-bildungsroman about a child actor in 1980s New York City being continually let down by the adults in his orbit—an epic family-cum-social novel bursting with detail so specific you might, at times, find that you believe in it just a little bit more than what you see out your window. "The Life of Herod the Great" When Zora Neale Hurston died, she was working on a sequel to her book about Moses and now, some 65 years later, we get to see what that might have been. It wasn’t lost, per se—the manuscript has been available to scholars at the University of Florida since Hurston’s papers went there after her de...
Books to look forward to in 2025
Books & Media

Books to look forward to in 2025

Nonfiction The Bright Side: Why Optimists Have the Power to Change the World by Sumit Paul-Choudhury (Canongate) The science journalist, who lost his wife to ovarian cancer, investigates the potent emotional forces that drive us on in the face of great hardship. Why do we have this capacity for optimism, and what distinguishes it from wishful thinking? Open Socrates: The Case for a Philosophical Life by Agnes Callard (Allen Lane) Professor of philosophy and a public intellectual for the internet age, Callard shows how Socrates can inform the way we live our lives – from romance to politics – nearly two and a half thousand years after his death. Hope: The Autobiography by Pope Francis (Viking) Pope Francis planned to release this memoir only after his death, but apparently “the needs of our...