Discussions give readers the opportunity to grapple with themes suggested by readme moderators. These discussions are about books, authors and new media.

[ 24.10.08 ] The fact that the Nobel Prize for Literature went to Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio had one rather illuminating side effect, for it once again shed light – and in a very striking fashion – on German literary criticism’s blindness to or rather its sheer aggressive disinterest in France. Jean-Marie who? Jean-Marie what? Evidently nobody had ever heard, not to mention read a line, of Le ... read on

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[ 14.10.08 ] Autumn is book fair season: the Göteborg Book Fair in Sweden closed at the end of September; the Liber International Book Fair in Barcelona ended a few days ago for the 26th time; the Frankfurt Book Fair , the largest book fair in the world, just opened its gates; the Boekenbeurs in Antwerpen is coming up afterwards, in early November; and, last but not least, the Buch Wien – an ... read on

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[ 04.10.08 ] A small scandal, somewhat reminiscent of Samuel Phillips Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations”, has convulsed the literary world. However, here we can safely leave religion out of the competition, for ultimately this match for global cultural sovereignty is tricky enough on its own: Old Europe vs. New World. Horace Engdahl, the Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy and spokesman ... read on

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[ 30.09.08 ] Last week, we reported about reading circles in real life, like the one organized by readme.cc and the Vienna Main Library. Today, for a change, we’d like to tell you about a special event in the virtual world. After a well-earned summer break, readings at Dagny NW , that is, at readme.cc’s Literature House in Second Life, began again on September 25. Every last Thursday of the month, ... read on

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[ 22.09.08 ] The Virtual Library: these three words sum up the big world of readme.cc, which is at all times about discovering good books and sharing them with others. Though there’s no reason for this to occur only virtually, as can be demonstrated by readme.cc’s reading circles. Reading circles are bookshelves compiled and maintained by many users. Sometimes these circles only exist online and ... read on

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[ 16.09.08 ] 2008 is a year of 40th anniversaries. Though this does not always have to do with 1968 as the year of the student movement and revolts – as can be demonstrated by a milestone birthday of an important literary institution: the Man Booker Prize for Fiction . This year, the celebrated prize will be awarded for the 40th time to the best English-language novel from the Commonwealth or Ireland. ... read on

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[ 05.09.08 ] The crucial question for the Booksellers’ Association is essentially as old as planned economies and economic liberalism: Which is better, the dynamics of the free market or the protective hand of the state? For as soon as products are considered “cultural goods”, things become tricky. In several European countries there is a fixed retail price for books, which guarantees that for a set ... read on

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[ 01.09.08 ] Before introducing my actual topic, I’d wanted to present the little Slovenian village of Medana, the venue of a festival celebrating its twelfth anniversary at the end of August 2008. So with this readme.cc news in mind, I decided to ask the omniscient World Wide Web for help two weeks ago. Normally Wikipedia is the right address for this kind of thing. But this time the search brought up ... read on

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[ 25.08.08 ] Amazon’s Kindle and its fellow competitors continue to be the hottest topic of this autumn book season. On the European market for digital reading devices, other companies have also begun positioning their products, for instance, the French phone company Orange with Read&Go , the German Telekom with News4me , or Sony with a device simply called Reader . And in the German-speaking ... read on

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[ 16.08.08 ] Literature is rapidly conquering virtual space. While readme.cc’s Second Life readings are taking a break for the summer, the Goethe Institute recently presented its new branch on an island of its own in the digital world of Second Life. In addition to a moderated chat, German classes and changing exhibitions, literary events are also to be held there. (From here you can go directly to ... read on

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[ 11.08.08 ] We’re in the middle of Britain’s National Year of Reading , and the events and initiatives are so numerous it’s impossible to report on them individually or in depth. There’s a lot happening in the United Kingdom of readers - on all levels, even in Parliament! This year the All-Party Parliamentary Writers Group (APWG) was formed to represent the interests of writers in the House ... read on

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[ 08.08.08 ] It’s the latest site with hype. Though, one might add, not just since yesterday. “What are you doing right now?” That’s the central question and people have been devoting themselves to it for some two years now, and not just in private, but right there, visible to the whole world. At the Twitter website, this very question is currently being answered again and again by over two ... read on

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[ 28.07.08 ] Finding out first, having an opinion first, or hearing about and reading everything before everyone else - in the information age, knowing first has become symbolic, cultural capital. And sometimes it can even be turned into hard cash. For ultimately cultural journalists make a living from nothing but a slight edge in information. In the era of blogs and citizen journalism, website ... read on

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[ 21.07.08 ] France enjoys being the navel of the universe, though often this attitude turns into mere navel-gazing. This fact regularly leads to criticism, as can be seen in a book just published by Gallimard, „Pour une littérature-monde.” In it, twelve authors - under the aegis of Michel Le Bris and Jean Rouaud - explore the role and meaning of the French language and literature in the globalised ... read on

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[ 14.07.08 ] „Garbage for All”. Such was the provocative title used by German writer Rainald Goetz ten years ago for his almost daily instalments to a novel - and they were posted at a website for anyone who wanted to read them. The title anticipated the preconceptions that it was sure to encounter as a text claiming to be literature but presented in such a fast moving and changing medium. Though ... read on

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