Alexandria, Virginia

Seattle leads Amazon’s 2015 list of America’s “most well-read cities.” My hometown of Alexandria, Virginia, with a population of around 150,000, is no longer #1. Amazon now compares only cities with populations of half a million or more, not the previous 100,000. Thank goodness. Alexandria’s #1 showing distracted the media and others from genuine literacy […]

The post Amazon’s ‘most well-read cities’ rankings for 2015: Thank goodness my hometown is NOT on this silly list appeared first on TeleRead: News and views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics.

Attention library advocates in Alexandria, Va.: Talking points for the local budget debate are here. Leaving us in the dark about the source of this tidbit, a Washington Post headline in the Style section blog says: “Alexandria, Virginia: the most well-read city in America.” Similar words show up elsewhere in the media about my hometown, the oft-paradoxical Washington suburb of some [...]

The post Amazon’s Number One Book City, Alexandria, Va., May Cut Library Hours appeared first on TeleRead: News and views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics.

I live in the Washington suburbs, where “Military-Industrial Complex” is more than just rhetoric in an Eisenhower speech from 1961. Just across 1-395 from me, here in Alexandria, Virginia, arise the twin towers of the $1+ billion Quarter Pentagon, featured in this Army Corps of Engineers video bragging of its size. Perhaps a lesson for publishers and [...]

The post Toward a Library-Publisher Complex for the digital era: Where the money is for both sides appeared first on TeleRead: News and views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics.

I’m still borrowing e-books from public libraries. I loved the digital edition of the late Louis Auchincloss’s memoirs that popped up when I was browsing the electronic stacks of a library system near me here in Northern Virginia.

Public libraries at their best can be Serendipity Central.

But I rely much less these days on library books than before. Too often, some major e-books are AWOL from library collections or, as documented earlier this year by the Washington Post, have long waiting lists.