10 Answers2025-05-23
Corporate matching: Find out if your company will match your donations to international literacy organizations. Some organizations like to make it easy to double the value of a monetary donation by filling out a few lines of information. Many larger, registered non-profits like Worldreader or Room to Read have already set this up. So, even though you may not be able to write a big check, the matched value of the proceeds from your garage sale of old books could buy a lot of new, locally-sourced books for communities around the world.
8 Answers2026-03-29
This fascinating discourse about the scarcity of study rooms in the city highlights the need for accessible, quiet third places to study, read, learn and work. Now that most coffee shops have become too expensive and too noisy for concentrated study, the libraries are filling this void. The huge competition for these rooms actually reveals a much larger urban design problem and I wish the city would create more dedicated study spaces, possibly even as separate entities from the traditional library branches. Until then, we’re all fighting over the same few carrels.
3 Answers2025-12-01
The chance of a book review in The Guardian is something to get excited about! The Guardian accepts submissions of books, but these are considered on the basis of specific submission guidelines, including a brief synopsis of your book, some information about yourself, and an explanation of why you think The Guardian is the right place for your book.
Sometimes its helpful to identify an angle of your book that makes it stand out from other publications. Is your book written from a different perspective? Does it provide a fresh insight or take on a current theme? Remember to keep your pitch brief and interesting – try to make it as hook like as possible. I’d be really interested to hear from authors who have successfully been reviewed by The Guardian – unfortunately I haven’t submitted anything yet, but hopefully soon!
Also reading reviews prior to submission can give you an idea of a reviewer’s style and their ‘likes’. So with persistence and creative thinking your work could get a good review to a large audience!
12 Answers2025-10-24
Watch out for very new bestsellers with holds. Because our system considers Express titles with a 7 day loan to be held at the branch where they were picked up, returning them to a different branch will eat up the transit time to return them. I recently learned this the hard way when a librarian scolded me for returning an Express title. For regular loans, take them wherever you want, but for Express, Lucky Day, or Hot Pick titles, try to return them to the original branch where they were picked up in order to get them back on the shelf as quickly as possible for others who are waiting.
8 Answers2025-11-09
A few genres have dedicated forums that are gold when it comes to finding books. The science fiction and fantasy forum for SFF Chronicles has an active 'Pay It Forward' thread that isn't a formal book swap but rather a list of books that people are willing to mail out to others and then others can claim those books and then add their own list of books to mail out to others later. I've found some incredible out-of-print paperbacks through this method and met some very nice people along the way. The books arrive by mail, so it's not as fast as some of the other sites and it's not guaranteed that you'll find what you're looking for but there's a wonderful sense of community involved. I end up discussing the books with the person who sent them to me, it's like being part of a book club and having a mailing list instead of just a cold transaction of sending and receiving books.
6 Answers2025-07-19
Many years ago I tried to get a quote cleared for a relatively obscure 1970s sci-fi novel. The publisher had changed hands twice since its initial publication and the author's estate was being administered by the author's nephew in a far flung country. After three months of emailing and sending faxes I finally received permission for use for a $200 fee. Alas, the advance was only marginally more than this. The process of clearing a single quote to reproduce less than a page of work taught me a very valuable lesson. The administrative burden is in itself a filter. Only the most determined, well-funded and connected writers will be able to see their work published. This is somewhat depressing when considering the topic of intertextuality and the dialogical relationship between works. The system as it currently stands favors certain voices over others. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, just that there are certain practical byways which currently shape what gets published.
2 Answers2025-07-14
I would love to know this as I recently visited my local Carnegie library, which is this beautiful old building with creaky wooden bookshelves. My local librarian told me that there is no master list of books in all Carnegie libraries. Each library lists its stocks separately, and therefore it is impossible to calculate the total number of books in all libraries. My local library has around 50,000 books, I’ve heard that the main library in Pittsburgh has over a million. But that’s not the point of a Carnegie library – it’s not a warehouse of books, it’s more of a community treasure chest.
10 Answers2025-05-12
It’s wonderful that these occasions of freely accessible culture occur in a city that can nickel and dime you to death on an everyday basis. It makes culture feel vital and integral to daily life, in contrast to something that you have to pay to access. My friends and I even created the occasion of ‘Morgan Friday’ for ourselves a couple of times a year.
After work on the first Friday of every month, I meet up with my friends to wait in line for Morgan Freight’s Free Admission Night to the Morgan Library & Museum. We then wander aimlessly through the exhibitions and end up the night getting a cheap slice of pizza somewhere. These kinds of programs make for a very New York night out and are just one of the many ways that a program like this can make a city truly livable. These types of programs can generate so much community goodwill and lead to life-long fans of a museum or gallery who can eventually become donors.
3 Answers2025-07-18
The critically acclaimed ‘Nevermoor’ series by Jessica Townsend is currently comprised of three books: ‘Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow’, ‘Wundersmith: The Calling of Morrigan Crow’ and ‘Hollowpox: The Hunt for Morrigan Crow’. The books follow Morrigan Crow, a determined and feisty protagonist, as she journeys through the magical world of Nevermoor, full of wonder and magic, facing various challenges and dangers along the way. The first book sets up Morrigan’s escape from her cursed life and subsequent arrival in Nevermoor in search of a new beginning.
Jessica Townsend has a brilliant way with words, transporting readers to Nevermoor with his wonderful descriptions of all the people that Morrigan meets. It’s a really light-hearted read, but has some deeper moments too. We’re told that more books are going to be added to the series, and I for one cannot wait to continue the adventures of Morrigan Crow in this fascinating and original take on fantasy.
8 Answers2026-04-06
It’s all a bit of wistful dreaming re:the seamless sell your books experience online and instant credit for them. Assessing physical books for condition remotely is expensive and highly subjective. ThriftBooks choose to avoid playing that game – going for scale over scope and doing it brilliantly to boot.
For me, and I know this will make me unpopular with many, the answer is fragmentation. I have a spreadsheet (how sad am I?) that divides my books up between three different sale channels: (A) sell in Half Price Books stores for immediate cash; (B) list individually on eBay for higher returns over a longer period; (C) donate. It’s not the most efficient or sexy answer but it works best for me with the types of book I have. ThriftBooks is where I spend the cash from the HPB sales.