John Wilson, Why Review Books? (Current)

‘Ever since I “discovered” book reviews, when I was in high school, I have been in love with this simple but infinitely flexible genre. Much of my adult life has been devoted to scouring publishers’ catalogues and other sources of information on forthcoming books, reviewing books myself and assigning them for review, editing reviews and seeing them into print, and of course reading thousands of reviews over the decades—a practice I will continue as long as I have my faculties.’

Mere Fidelity, Reading Advice (Mere Fidelity)

The Mere Fidelity crew discusses the discipline of reading. Should we share our reading lists? How do we choose our reading lists? How do we prioritize what we read? They discuss these questions and more in a 50 minute episode.

BBC Culture, The 100 Greatest Children’s Books of All Time (BBC)

‘While of course far from definitive, the answers we have gleaned are fascinating – and we hope will make readers both wistful for the books they loved in their youth and ready to try out titles that passed them by, or were published after they came of age; for there is no reason that the greatest children’s literature shouldn’t be equally nourishing to an adult.’

Megan Lim and Christopher Intagliata, Rare Shakespeare first edition on sale for $7.5 million (NPR)

‘Four hundred years after it was first printed, Shakespeare’s First Folio is up for sale for $7.5 million. The book contains a near-complete collection of the bard’s plays.’ Read the transcript or listen to the interview.

Jon Boyd, Actively Creating the Conditions we Most Enjoy (Current)

‘Why look at old books? Because there’s a slat loose in the fence they’ve got us penned up in, and we can jiggle it free to see better what’s going on out there.’

Anne Trubek, Book Cover Aesthetics (Notes from a Small Press)

‘One might have predicted that, the longer print books continue to represent an increasingly rare analog cultural entertainment, the more various would be their covers. After all, it is the cover that most distinguishes the sad sameness of ebooks from print books. Instead, at least in the past few years, we’ve seen a narrowing of the aesthetic.’