U. Texas: COLUMN: Turn off the tube, turn on a book.
The News Review:
- U. Texas: COLUMN: Turn off the tube, turn on a book.
- Child star at the heart of His Dark Materials
- RR Donnelley Agrees to Buy Banta for $1.3 Billion (Update4)
U. Texas: COLUMN: Turn off the tube, turn on a book.
Free with registration – America's Intelligence Wire – AccessMyLibrary.com – Oct 31, 2006
Even as the number of students going to college increases, the percentage of the general population reading literature is dropping. This is literature in the broad sense, meaning anything people read for fun. Everything from Shakespeare to “Harry Potter” is on the decline on American bookshelves. According to a report from the National Endowment for the Arts, less than 50 percent of people in this country read for fun in 2002. In 1999, 50 percent of people had read at least one book in the past six months. Last year, the majority of people in this country didn’t read a single one. And America is one of the more literate countries in the world.
Child star at the heart of His Dark Materials
Times Online – Oct 31, 2006
Fans of the books were offered the proof yesterday, when Hollywood released the first still from The Golden Compass, the first of the films based on the bestselling books. The shoot is due to continue in Britain until the end of January, and the film is not likely to open before December next year, but the still gives fans the first glimpse of Nicole Kidman, the Oscar-winning actress, as the glamorous but manipulative Mrs Coulter, and Dakota Blue Richards, a 12-year-old unknown from Sussex, as Lyra Belacqua, the fiercely independent heroine of the books. She may not have had any acting experience, but Dakota was picked for the biggest child role in a film since Harry Potter. She stood out from 10,000 young hopefuls who attended casting calls in the South of England by New Line Cinema, which also made the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Having been a big fan of the books, she loved the National Theatre stage production and wanted to play the character “more than anything else in the world”.
RR Donnelley Agrees to Buy Banta for $1.3 Billion (Update4)
Bloomberg – Oct 31, 2006
Donnelly, printer of Sports Illustrated, TV Guide andthe Harry Potter books, has been buying rivals to expand servicesin Europe and Asia and to boost sales. In the past 18 months, thecompany spent $1. 2 billion to buy U. print services companyAstron Group and document-outsourcer OfficeTiger.