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Weekly News Digest
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April 10, 2018 — In addition to this week's NewsBreaks article and the monthly NewsLink Spotlight, Information Today, Inc. (ITI) offers Weekly News Digests that feature recent product news and company announcements. Watch for additional coverage to appear in the next print issue of Information Today.
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Canadian and American Shows Pick the 'Best' Novels
Porter Anderson, editor-in-chief of Publishing Perspectives, shares news and commentary about national book competitions: the four-part Canada Reads show concluded by choosing its winning novel, and PBS is going to host a similar show starting May 22 called The Great American Read.“Canada Reads, with its theme ‘A Book To Open Your Eyes,’ is the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s national-debate program … which eliminates four of five carefully chosen socially relevant books in a four-day sequence of debate,” Anderson writes. A panel of celebrities debated each book in front of a live audience. “A lot of the discussion is unabashedly geared toward issues with which the Canadian populations, plural, are grappling, clearly mining the country’s new literature for its context on this diverse society and what so many distinct peoples can become as one nation.” Forgiveness, by Mark Sakamoto, eventually won the competition. The Great American Read, an eight-part series hosted by Meredith Vieira, will start with a list of 100 books, which celebrities and other personalities will debate, and the audience will vote for the eventual winner, to be crowned America’s Best-Loved Novel. Anderson writes, “Armchair critics will note that this sounds like a one-off venture. Once the ‘best-loved novel’ is ordained, does another season look for the country’s ‘second-best-loved novel’? What’s more, the American love of superlatives may make ‘the best!’ attractive, but one of the Canadian show’s strengths is that it holds up all five books for their quality and doesn’t place as much emphasis on a winner and, perforce, losers. Nevertheless, the new outing is to be welcomed, it’s unfair to critique it in advance, and its mission and format need not match the Canadian show.” For more information, read the article.
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Brandi Scardilli
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