Timothy Young: Books Matter

Timothy Young writing in Design Observer, gives ten good reasons the book is important:  

7. A book is an object fixed in time. 
A book can tell us about its status in history. If we look through first editions of Moby Dick or Leaves of Grass, we find that they give away information not only about when they were created, but also about the worlds in which they were created, by way of advertisements, bindings, the quality of their paper, and watermarks on that paper. Such components are often not captured by scanning or are flattened out to make them of negligible use. In Nicholson Baker’s Double Fold—his saga about how libraries microfilmed runs of newspapers in the 1950s and 1960s and then discarded them—one of his chief complaints was that the filmers skipped advertising supplements and cartoons: things that had been deemed unimportant. 
 

Tokyo Reverse

Mesmerizing excerpt from an 9 hour, slow tv program for French TV.

"Old/New" - Narrated by Patton Oswalt

Old/New is the story of Drew McHugh, a man whose penchant for the new -- new devices, new fashion, new friends -- is challenged when he discovers the rustic appeal of old-fashioned things. He quickly becomes obsessed with the reclaimed and well-worn - plummeting face-first down the rabbit hole of novelty and nostalgia.

A fantastic short film that serves as a promo reel for Red Giant. 

Red Giant, Seth Worley and Aharon Rabinowitz take you behind the scenes of Old/New below:

Neil Gaiman presents lifetime achievement award to Ursula K. Le Guin at 2014 National Book Awards

For more than forty years, Le Guin has defied conventions of narrative, language, character, and genre, as well as transcended the boundaries between fantasy and realism, to forge new paths for literary fiction. Among the nation’s most revered writers of science fiction and fantasy, Le Guin’s fully imagined worlds challenge readers to consider profound philosophical and existential questions about gender, race, the environment, and society. Her boldly experimental and critically acclaimed novels, short stories, and children’s books, written in elegant prose, are popular with millions of readers around the world.

In recognition of her transformative impact on American literature, Ursula K. Le Guin is the 2014 recipient of the Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. She is the Foundation’s twenty-seventh award recipient.
 

Kurt Vonnegut on how to write a short story

Advice from Vonnegut, because today everything is storytelling.