Category Archives: News

News for and about English Majors

Top 10 Most Challenged Books of 2011

Each year the American Library Association (ALA) puts out a list of books that have received the most challenges in the past year. The ALA defines a challenge as  “an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group… Challenges do not simply involve a person expressing a point of view; rather, they are an attempt to remove material from the curriculum or library, thereby restricting access of others.  As such, they are a threat to freedom of speech and choice.”  In 2011, there were 326 book challenges sent to the ALA.

Here are the top 10 for 2011:

1.   ttyl, ttfn and l8r, g8r a series by Lauren Myracle tells the story of three high school girls through their instant messages.  It was number one in 2008 and 2009 but missed the list entirely last year.  The books were challenged due to offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit and is unsuited to the age group.

2.   The Color of Earth a graphic novel series by Kim Dong Hwa about the daughter of a single mother in Korea who owns a tavern was challenged because of nudity, sex education, sexually explicit and unsuited to the age group.

3.   The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins made popular by the recent movie was challenged because it is thought to be anti-ethnic, anti-family, insensitive, has offensive language, occult/satanic and violence.

4.   My Mom’s Having A Baby! A Kid’s Month-by-Month Guide to Pregnancy by Dori Hillestad Butler was published in 2005 but is making its debut on the list.  It was challenged because it contains nudity, sex education, sexually explicit content and is unsuited to the age group.

5.   The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie dropped from number two on last year’s list.  It was challenged because of offensive language, racism, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit and unsuited to the age group.

6.   Alice is a series by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor that follows a girl through her senior year of high school.  It was challenged on the basis of nudity, offensive language and religious viewpoint.

7.   Brave New World by Aldous Huxley dropped from third place last year.  It was challenged because of insensitivity, nudity, racism, religious viewpoint and sexually explicit.

8.What My Mother Doesn’t Know by Sonya Sones is a book about a girl’s freshman year of highschool told in poetry. It was number seven on last year’s list and was challenged due to nudity, offensive language and sexually explicit.

9.   Gossip Girl a series by Cecily Von Ziegesar was challenged because of drugs, offensive language and sexually explicit.

10.   To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee was challenged because of its offensive language and racism.

New book study, eBooks on the rise

The Pew Internet & American Life Project recently released a study done in November and December of 2011 called “The Rise of e-Reading.”  Here are some of the main statistics:

  • 21 percent of Americans have read an ebook.
  • People prefer ebooks in a head-to-head competition except when they are reading to children or sharing books with others.
  • A majority of readers prefer to buy, rather than borrow their books.  (54 percent of print readers and 61 percent ebook readers.)
  • 80 percent of Americans 16 and older say they read, at least occasionally, for pleasure,  36 percent read for pleasure every day or almost every day.
  • People read most frequently to keep up with current events. 78 percent of Americans say they read at least occasionally to keep up with current events while 50 percent say they do it daily or almost daily.
  • 74 percent of Americans read at least occasionally to do reasearch on specific topics that interest them, 24 percent do it daily or almost daily.
  • 56 percent of Americans say they read at least occasionally for work or school while 36 percent say they do it daily or almost daily.
  • 48 percent of ebook readers bought the last book they read, 24 percent borrowed it from someone else, 14 percent borrowed it from a library and 13 percent borrowed it “from another source” aka they downloaded illegally from the internet.

Read the full Pew study.

SparkNotes going cellular

Originally called The Spark when it debuted in 1999, SparkNotes is now available as an app for your mobile device.  While SparkNotes shouldn’t be used instead of a text, it can be very helpful when trying to understand everything that is going on.

The free app comes with 50 study guides, a check-in feature to help facilitate study groups as well as a function to share what you’re currently studying on Facebook.

Read the story by Cameron Summerson or get the SparkNotes app.

Bestsellsers, a gateway drug to literature

American literature professor and author James W. Hall recently wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal entitled “Beware Literary Snobbery: Why We Should Read Bestsellers.”  In it he discusses his decent into literary snobdom and how his idea for a class to show how little value popular novels have resulted in him reconnecting with his love of reading all types of books.

“In that semester the passion for reading I’d once had as a kid and lost in the years of academic study was rekindled, and suddenly I began to question many of my long-held assumptions about ‘literature,'” Hall said.  “While I’d been refining my palate, enjoying an ever smaller sampling of delicacies, millions of my fellow book lovers had been having a rollicking good time gulping down the comfort food of ‘Jaws,’ ‘The Exorcist’ and ‘Valley of the Dolls.'”

Hall as gone on to teach that course for the last 20 years as well as write a book called Hit Lit: Cracking the Code of the Twentieth Century’s Biggest Bestsellers.  His theory is that we should not look down on anything that gets people reading, and that when readers finish with the popular novels a spark will have been lit that will lead them to the classics.

Read the entire story written by James W. Hall.

International Children’s Book Day

April 2 was International Children’s Book Day.  Started in 1967 by the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY), International Chlidren’s Book Day is held on Hans Christian Andersen’s birthday to celebrate and inspire a love of reading children’s books.

2012 International Children's Book Day poster designed by Juan Gedovius.

Andersen, a Danish author, lived April 2, 1805 – August 4, 1975 and is best known for his fairy tales for children including “The Little Mermaid,” “Thumbelina” and “The Ugly Duckling.”

National sections of IBBY take turns each year being the international sponsor of International Children’s Book Day.  The section gets to choose a theme and invites a prominent author from their country to write a message to the world’s children as well as an illustrator to design a poster for that year.

This year’s host country was Mexico and the theme was “Once upon a time, there was a story that the whole world told.”  The message to the children was written by Francisco Hinojosa and the poster was designed by Juan Gedovius.

You can read Hinojosa’s message to the children in this PDF or on IBBY’s website.

Potter to be read by all

The popular Harry Potter series went on sale in ebook format in the last week of March. 

 Unlike most ebooks, they are for sale exclusively on J.K. Rowling’s new web store Pottermore.  Instead of being encrypted like the ebooks you buy from Amazon or Barnes & Noble, these books are in an EPUB format, the most popular open ebook standard, that can be read on pretty much any computer or device. 

According to an article from The Salt Lake Tribune, “publishers insist on encryption in the form of ‘Digital Rights Management,’ or DRM because they believe it stops piracy.”  Really, they just want to make sure you have to buy your books from the same place you bought your eReader.

Until now, Harry Potter books have been among the most pirated books in the world because there have been no legal electronic versions.  Fans have had to scan or even retype entire books to be shared online.

Now, legal electronic versions are available on Pottermore in a variety of formats compatible with whatever eReader you happen to be using.  All downloads will include invisible “watermarks” that identify the buyer to discourage widespread sharing but will be able to be shared between friends.

If this method of selling unencrypted ebooks turns out to be a success, it may pave the way for other authors to follow suit and change the way ebooks are sold forever.

Learn more in the original article by Peter Svensson.

Hunger Games: a literature tradition

According to Los Angeles Times reporter Rebecca Keegan, literature has a long history of putting children into grisly situations as an allegory for adult cruelty.  The most recent example being The Hunger Games made widely famous by the recent release of the movie based on the books by Suzanne Collins.

Collins has said inspiration The Hunger Gamescame from the story in Greek mythology in which the people of Athens send seven boys and seven girls to be eaten by the Minotaur until Theseus shows up to kill it.

In stories like Collins’s The Hunger Games, the Grimm fairy tales, Lord of the Flies and even Harry Potter children are used as mirrors for adult problems.  Many even believe that these problems can only really be solved by the youth and innocence of  children.

However the young get something out of it too.  For many teens the scenes of battling children are very relatable, if not literally then metaphorically and can be very cathartic.

As Keegan said in her article, “Who wants to read about sunshine and happiness?”

Read the original article by Rebecca Keegan.

How to get ebooks for free

Last week, I told you about Whichbook, a site to help you find new books to read in my post Looking for a new book?.  This week I will introduce you to Scribd, a document sharing site where you can find many ebooks.

Scribd is a social network for books.  Instead of statuses and pictures you share books, magazines and documents.  You can upload your own work, or read what others have uploaded.  It’s not only individuals using Scribd either, big companies like CBS, Simon & Schuster and The New York Times upload content too. You can find everything from business presentations to popular novels, and then share what you’re reading with your friends on Scribd, Facebook and Twitter.  You can even embed your documents in your sites on Blogger and WordPress.

All you have to do to get started is create an account.  If you choose to log in with your Facebook account, Scribd will automatically connect you to any of your Facebook friends that are on Scribd.  If you don’t want to connect it to your Facebook, there is also an option to create an account with your email address.

With your account you can create collections where you can store your documents or the documents you find.  There are three different types of collections:

1.  “Public-moderated” meaning anyone can see your collection, and people can add documents with your permission.

2.  “Public-locked” means anyone can view your collection but only you can add documents.

3.  “Private” means only you can view and add documents to your collection.

Another great thing about Scribd is that you can get documents that are compatible with a variety of devices.  Not only can you access documents online, you can also download them as pdf or txt files and send them to any of  your various mobile devices.

I won’t guarantee that you will be able to find every author or book you search for, but if you are willing to be flexible you should be able to find something you will like on Scribd.

New words are a dying breed

According to The Guardian, new research has been done that analyzes the more than 10 million words used between 1800 and 2008.

The scientists say that words are constantly in competition with each other and the use of spell check and strict editing has cut down on the number of misspelled and nonsensical words that lead to the creation of genuinely new words.  It is the loss of these types of words that have led to the greatest change in vocabulary over the last 10-20 years.

Words created by errors are not the only words that are dying out.  Synonyms are fighting for dominance as well.  The story gives the example of Roentgenogram and radiogram, both of which have been soundly beaten by x-ray.

During their research, the scientists found that wars significantly increased the number of new words to be assimilated into a language. According to the researchers,”‘This can be understood as manifesting from the unification of public consciousness that creates fertile breeding ground for new topics and ideas.'”

The scientists concluded that historical events have a great impact on the birth of new words, but things like spell check are putting limitations on that creation.

Read the full story, Study reveals words’ Darwinian struggle for survival by Alison Flood.

You’ve got it, now use it.

As an English major, you have a pretty wide set of skills.  You can analyze text, argue effectively, think creatively, research well and write clearly and consicely among other things.  All in all if you decide not to pursue a career in academia you ohave a wide variety of skills to market to potential employers.

Here is a list of the most commonly suggested fields for English majors to go into after graduation.

Technical Writer

Technical writers have to be good with the english language and details. They must also be able to break down complicated topics and concepts so they can be easily understood.

Librarian

Librarians need to be able to direct patrons to the material they are looking for as well as make recommendations.  They also need a good grasp of literature and to be able to research and analyze data.

Copywriter/Proofreader/Editor

English majors make a study of the English language making them well aquointed with word usage, sentance structure and grammar making them ideal for making sure that writing is ready for public consumption.

Paralegal/Legal assistant/Lawyer

Writing, research and being able to argue a point are all skills necessary in the legal profession as well as the English major.  Having good grammar skills doesn’t hurrt either.

Teacher

Depending on the laws where you live, a degree in English may be all you need.  It can also be a good building block for a masters in Education.

Information compiled from PayScale, Hub Pages and CareerRookie.