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[rarebirdlit]

There is a man who travels around the world trying to find places where you can stand still and hear no human sound. It is impossible to feel calm in cities, he believes, because we so rarely hear birdsong there. Our ears evolved to be our warning systems. We are on high alert in places where no birds sing. To live in a city is to be forever flinching.

From Dept. of Speculation, by Jenny Offill. (via othersashas)

[rarebirdlit]

“While he artfully lifts the veil on a world outside of most people’s experience, he also offers an outstretched hand of solidarity to every black sheep boy and girl who’s lucky enough to pick up a copy of his book.” 

[rarebirdlit]

Check out this swampy fever-dream of a book trailer for Martin Pousson’s swampy fever-dream of a novel, Black Sheep Boy, which comes out on May 10th. 

Aimee Bender, author of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake called the novel: “Beautifully impressionistic, and also raw, open and vulnerable. Pousson’s bayou is such a frightening and vibrant place, generous and punishing, and the narrator’s perspective pulls us in, and brings the reader close.”

And check out the individual stories here:

REVIVAL GIRL: https://vimeo.com/165371181

WANTED MAN: https://vimeo.com/165371505

REVELATOR: https://vimeo.com/165372116 

 BLACK SHEEP BOY: https://vimeo.com/165372426 

 FEATHERS: https://vimeo.com/165372804 

 TWO HEADED BOY: https://vimeo.com/165373102

[rarebirdlit]

Prince is an artist, a genius, and a true visionary, and he will be sorely missed.

[rarebirdlit]

We transformed our logo into the Mockingjay logo we’re so excited about the last Hunger Games tonight. Who else is excited for the midnight premiere? 

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Tom Stern, author of Sutterfeld, You are Not A Hero, is on reddit AMA! Check it out. 

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Couldn’t agree more

[rarebirdlit]

We’re so excited to announce the NPR Storybook Project!

We asked all kinds of fascinating parents – authors, actors, politicians, philanthropists, scientists, musicians – to tell us about their five all-time favorite books to read to their children.  And we got wonderful answers: Tiger Mom Amy Chua’s daughters love Taran the Assistant Pig-Keeper from The Book of Three. Musician Jack Johnson “wore the corners off” of Good Night, Gorilla when his children were little. And author Edwige Danticat sings the praises of Jacqueline Woodson.

We’ll be posting a few entries each week (and we’d love to hear from you too), so watch this space for folks like Melinda Gates, Ani DiFranco, Maz Jobrani and more!

[rarebirdlit]

Prejudice and Pride

[rarebirdlit]

David Berkeley’s new single “Colored Birds” featured on pastemagazine

Check out his new song and the article here and be on the lookout for The Free Brontosaurus at your nearest bookstore! (Full list of tour dates in the article above)

[rarebirdlit]

[rarebirdlit]

David Berkeley’s Colored Birds on Paste Magazine

David Berkeley’s new single “Colored Birds” featured on pastemagazine

Check out his new song and the article here and be on the lookout for The Free Brontosaurus at your nearest bookstore! (Full list of tour dates in the article above)

[rarebirdlit]

Why do I read? I just can’t help myself. I read to learn and to grow, to laugh and to be motivated. I read to understand things I’ve never been exposed to. I read when I’m crabby, when I’ve just said monumentally dumb things to the people I love. I read for strength to help me when I feel broken, discouraged, and afraid. I read when I’m angry at the whole world. I read when everything is going right. I read to find hope. I read because I’m made up not just of skin and bones, of sights, feelings, and a deep need for chocolate, but I’m also made up of words. Words describe my thoughts and what’s hidden in my heart. Words are alive–when I’ve found a story that I love, I read it again and again, like playing a favorite song over and over. Reading isn’t passive–I enter the story with the characters, breathe their air, feel their frustrations, scream at them to stop when they’re about to do something stupid, cry with them, laugh with them. Reading for me, is spending time with a friend. A book is a friend. You can never have too many.

Gary Paulsen - Shelf Life: Stories by the Book  (via bookporn)

[rarebirdlit]

Fiction: 'Everyone Comes Back' | Jayme Karales

It was a Tuesday in March. Same as any other day. Forty-seven-year old Bill Fasulo woke to his alarm clock’s screech and the smell of his wife’s cooking. Along with that came a built-in sense of dread. One that had festered deep in his bones and made itself apparent five days a week. It had settled-in the exact moment he’d landed the position of file manager at Regal Dermatology.

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Hayao Miyazaki’s 50 Recommended Books:

1. « The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1943)

2. « Il Romanzo di Cipollino - Gianni Rodari (1956)

3. « The Rose and the Ring - William Makepeace Thackeray (1854)

4. « The Little Bookroom- Eleanor Farjeon (1955)

5. « The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas (1844)

6. The Secret Garden -Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett (1909)

7.  The Treasure of the Nibelungs - G.Schalk (1953)

8.  Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll (1865)

9.  The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (1891)

10. A Norwegian Farm » Marie Hamsun (1933)

11. Конёк-горбунок - Пётр Па́влович Ершо́в (1834)

12. Souvenirs entomologiques - Jean-Henri Casimir Fabre (1879-1907)

13. Toui Mukashi no Fushigina Hanashi-Nihon Reiiki - Tsutomu Minakami (1995)

14. Иван-дурак - Leo Tolstoy (1885)

15. Eagle of the Ninth -Rosemary Sutcliff (1954)

16. Winnie-the-Pooh - A. A. Milne (1926)

17. Les Princes du Vent - Michel-Aime Baudouy (1956)

18. When Marnie Was There - Joan G Robinson (1967)

19. The Long Winter - Laura Ingalls Wilder (1940)

20. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame (1908)

21. The Ship That Flew -Hilda Lewis (1939)

22. Flambards - Kathleen Wendy Peyton (1967)

23. Tom’s Midnight Garden - Ann Philippa Pearce (1958)

24. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer - Mark Twain (1876)

25. Chumon no Ooi Ryouriten - Kenji Miyazawa (1924)

26. Heidi - Johanna Spyri (1888)

27. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea - Jules Verne (1870)

28. The Borrowers- Mary Norton (1952)

29. Devatero pohádek - Karel Čapek 　(1931)

30. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome (1930)

31. The Flying Classroom - Erich Kästner (1933)

32.  Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe (1719)

33. Treasure Island- Robert Louis Stevenson (1883)

34.  Двена́дцать ме́сяцев - Samuil Marshak (1943)

35. Tistou les pouces verts - Maurice Druon (1957)

36. The man who planted the welsh onions -  Kim Soun (1953)

37. Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio - Pu Songling (1740)

38. The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle - Hugh John Lofting (1922)

39. Journey to the West - Wú Chéng’ēn (1500~?)

40. Little Lord Fauntleroy - Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett (1886)

41. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler -Elaine Lobl Konigsburg　(1968)

42. Alla vi barn i Bullerbyn - Astrid Lindgren (1947)

43. The Hobbit, or There and Back Again » J.R.R. Tolkien (1937)

44. A Wizard of Earthsea -Ursula K. Le Guin (1968)

45. The Little White Horse -Elizabeth Goudge (1946)

46. Bylo nas pet- Karel Polacek (1969)

47. City Neighbor: The Story of Jane Addams - Clara Ingram Judson (1951)

48. The Radium Woman - Eleanor Doorly (1939)

49.  The Otterbury Incident - Cecil Day-Lewis (1948)

50. Hans Brinker or The Silver Skates -Mary Mapes Dodge (1865)

[rarebirdlit]

Poetry: ‘The Girl with the Ice Cream Eyes’ | S.T. Cartledge

He can’t take his eyes off those ice cream eyes, those swirls and lines so soft and sweet and melting down her face.

He can’t take his eyes off those ice cream eyes, if looks could taste so soft- -ly sweet- -ly slowly melting, dripping down her chin,

A quiet beauty held within.

What a shame to let it go to waste.

She makes jealous every guy with her ice cream eyes made for long and longing stares, eyes which drip and smother that melting feeling, that summer delight.

What eyes a mother knows would thrill a guy, maybe make him crazy enough to kill.

What blood would spill, what strawberry syrup, what a sundae on her face.

But her head is a freezer, she’s cold, and she sure as shit is not a pleaser.

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