National Book Award Finalists Marilynne Robinson and Ben Lerner, and 2013 5 Under 35 Honoree Merritt Tierce are featured in the Huffington Post’s list of the “Best Books for Fall 2014”
TRANSFORMING URBAN SPACES INTO READING RETREATS
A Winner of our 2013 Innovations in Reading Prize, The Uni Project places pop-up reading rooms throughout New York City. Designed in collaboration with a team of MIT architects, the Uni consists of lightweight cubes stocked with high-quality books and hands-on learning activities for the public to browse and read.
Since winning NBF’s Innovations in Reading Prize, The Uni Project has been assembled in more than 20 locations throughout the city– including our National Book Awards Ceremony! As Leslie Davol, who, with her husband Sam Davol, launched The Uni Project in 2011, explains:“we’ve learned that the Uni can be a haven, a kind of oasis in a very busy and sometimes challenging city.”
More from Davol’s interview:
National Book Foundation: What inspired your Innovations in Reading-winning program?
Leslie Davol: We started sharing books and creating outdoor reading rooms because we love the city. When you walk through different cities, you pick up on different priorities. Are you dodging bicycles or cars? Can you find a place to sit down? Where are the playgrounds? Look closer and you’ll see differences in the prominence of books. At one end of the spectrum, Paris comes to mind—there seems to be a book store every couple of blocks.
New Yorkers love books and reading. They say that education and learning are top priorities for themselves and for their children. But sometimes, the urban environment of New York can make you think that we’re more interested in just about anything else, from cell phones to shoe shopping. The Uni reading room is simply a way to unleash New Yorkers’ passion for reading and learning by using available public space to gather around these activities. It’s a simple but powerful idea, especially in the middle of a city of 8 million potential readers.
NBF: What obstacles or challenges have you encountered along the way?
LD: It isn’t always easy to set up a reading room in a public space. We like to surprise people, amaze them even, by finding ways to put books in places you wouldn’t expect. But we also want people to feel like a reading room in the middle of the city is a feasible, sensible solution that could be an ongoing part of public life. So ideally, our installation should appear dramatic and practical all at once. We’re constantly working on that balance.
To read more, click here
Thinking about applying for our 2014 Innovations in Reading Prize? Find out more here.
Our 2015 Innovations in Reading Prize Winner Reach Incorporated tops The Boston Globe’s list of successful reading programs!
While the situation is better today than it was several years ago, public school libraries still do not have enough books, especially those that are current and compelling for kids.
Carolyn Rodriguez, vice president, program, and administrative manager for City National Bank’s Reading is the Way Up, a 2013 Innovations in Reading Prize Winner.
On March 4, City National Bank awarded 80 Reading is the Way Up literacy grants totalling more than $86,000 to schools in California, Nevada, New York, Tennessee, and Georgia.
We ❤️ The Uni Project and not just because they gave us a hand for our Great Book Giveaway with @neilhimself and Daniel Handler!
We ❤️ them because they are a past winner of our annual Innovations in Reading Prize and their pop-up reading rooms are putting books into the hands of thousands of readers. “430 hours of reading time in 26 different neighborhoods’ throughout NYC,” according to Publishers’ Weekly. The National Book Foundation is now accepting applications for the 2015 Innovations in Reading Prize. One winner will be awarded $10,000. Are you our next discovery?
Don’t miss the return of the National Book Foundation’s second annual Why Reading Matters conference, featuring literary activists and leaders exploring how we can engage a wider audience for literature.
The conference is in Queens, NY on 6/15. Get tickets today!
The National Book Foundation is looking for individuals and institutions that are using innovative means of creating and sustaining a lifelong love of reading, like previous winner Little Free Library (picture above).
Applying for the $10,000 Innovations in Reading Prize is free. The deadline is February 28. Apply today!
Call Me Ishmael, one of our 2015 Innovations in Reading Prize honorees, has developed a remarkable new way to find your next great read. From the retro style phone, anyone can to listen to reading recommendations from their fellow book lovers. The phone takes Call Me Ishmael’s beloved program from the internet and makes it available in your favorite bookstore, library, or just about anywhere (we set one up at the Brooklyn Book Festival).
Visit their Kickstarter page to learn more and support the project.
The reality is, the best way that I can teach a kid to read is to get them to feel that their reading matters to someone.
‘You just get so distracted,’ one student said. 'It’s like if I finish a paragraph, I’ll go on Tumblr, and then three hours later you’re still not done with reading.’
alwaysbringabookwithyou
all-these-paperback-dreams
Barnes and Nobles is gonna start serving food and alcohol.
Everybody’s cracking jokes about how it’s a desperate attempt to stay relevant in the age of Amazon.
But you know what? Props to them. This is exactly what Blockbuster didn’t do. At no point was Blockbuster like “Hey, movie rentals aren’t the lucrative enterprise they once were. Perhaps it’s time we become known for our cheesy garlic bread.”
that’s a fantastic plan, honestly? i would 100% go sit at a bookshop, buy a glass of wine, and pick up the newest biography. 50/50 i’d decide to buy it after a couple chapters, and even if i don’t, that’s still money i spent at B&N!
They could host book clubs with food and drinks where one of the employees shares their experiences with a book of their choice and tries to convince the guests to buy it.
Barnes and noble realizing the only reason people go to brick and mortar stores is for the experience and access to an enjoyable physical space they can socialize in (sure isnt for the price) and capitalizing on that is a stroke of genius and a really refreshing approach to the dilemma of competing with online stores
