Welcome back!

I hope you all had a good summer. I'm back to the grind and I found this article: why should you go to your public library? The answer may seem obvious, but if you had to list 10 reasons what would you say? Just to brush up on your English you can follow the link and see if it mentions your ideas (you might be surprised by the webpage).

Why should you go to your public library?

¡Hasta pronto!

Llegadas estas fechas de exámenes nos despedimos hasta el próximo curso. Buena suerte con los exámenes y no olvidéis leer durante el verano.

Maurice Sendak dies at 83

Maurice Sendak, widely considered the most important children’s book artist of the 20th century, who wrenched the picture book out of the safe, sanitized world of the nursery and plunged it into the dark, terrifying and hauntingly beautiful recesses of the human psyche, died on May 8 in Danbury, Conn. He was 83.

Mr. Sendak’s books were essential ingredients of childhood for the generation born after 1960 or thereabouts, and in turn for their children. He was known in particular for more than a dozen picture books he wrote and illustrated himself, most famously “Where the Wild Things Are,” which was simultaneously genre-breaking and career-making when it was published by Harper & Row in 1963.

(read the whole New York Times article)

Watch the trailer for the film directed by Spike Jonze in 2009.

Herman Hesse

Am 9. August 2012 wird der Todestag des deutschen Schriftstellers und Dichters Hermann Hesse gefeiert. Hesse ist weit hinaus über die deutschen bzw. europäischen Grenzen bekannt.

Seine Bücher, Romane, Erzählungen, Betrachtungen, Gedichte und Schriften sind in aller Wert verbreitet.

Der am 2.7. 1877 in Calw (Würtemberg) geborene Autor, ausgezeichnet 1946 mit dem Nobelpreis für Literatur, starb am 9. August 1962 in Montagnola bei Lugano.

Wenn Sie mehr über sein Leben bzw. sein Werk wissen möchten, klicken Sie einfach hier:

http://www.hermann-hesse.de

Organizing the bookcase

How do you organise your books? By size? Alphabetically? Watch this video: wouldn't it be cool if this happened at home?

On a larger scale, by the same authors:

Swedish noir

You have probably heard about Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy or seen one of the films. Nordic crime fiction is pretty popular these days and you can easily find Assa Larson or Camilla Lackberg's books at the hypermarket. If you are into Scandinavian noir, you're not alone: the trend seems universal. As an example, you can read this article from the Los Angeles Times, and learn about more authors:

Mysterious Sweden

Hardcore book lovers

This pair takes their reading very seriously.

You can find the lyrics in the author's blog, and a link to the original video (look for the March 19 entry).