Page 6 - Books

Why it matters that teens are reading less & focusing more on social media

Of course, teens are still reading. But they're reading short texts and Instagram captions, not long-form articles that explore deep themes and require critical thinking and reflection

Summer reading suitcases

If every book you took with you while travelling was enjoyable, you might accidentally read through them all - and be, once again, faced with the horrifying prospect of actually talking to your family

When writing a book leaves a (literal) mark on its author

Yet the wages of a book go deeper than royalties or celebration

The body politik

Sen-Handley does not shrink from a rigorous and unsentimental assessment of her sexual forays and missteps

A Biography of Innovations: How to develop a culture with creative failures

Organisations can develop an innovative culture by institutionalising creative failures, too, says R Gopalakrishnan in his latest book, A Biography of Innovations

Want to spend lone time with books? Here are the three best weekend picks for you

Michael Crichton's 'Dragon Teeth' is based on the rivalry between real-life paleontologists Cope and Marsh

What if we could upload books to our brains?

Human brain might interface directly with non-biological forms of intelligence

I read 40 books last year. Here's what I learned

I turned 40 this year and reading these books was my version of the so-called midlife crisis

Using fiction to make curious links between financial risk and terrorism

University of the Witwatersrand English lecturer Schalkwyk with five books that influenced his year

Good non-fiction, finally

Why aren't more professors and academics writing more readable books on history, politics, diplomacy, economic or current affairs? That's because Indian academia suffers an acute deficiency of original research in the humanities

Which books deserve a sequel?

In 1909, William Butler Yeats posited a theory of romantic devotion. "True love is a discipline," he wrote in his journal. "Each divines the secret self of the other, and refusing to believe in the mere daily self, creates a mirror where the lover or the beloved sees an image to copy in daily life."The idea that love compels us to make aspirational selves is a romantic one, but the reciprocal artifice can be tyrannical too. It's an argument made by Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl and Lauren Groff's Fates and Furies, two of the most read and talked-about novels from the past few years. Both are about rage and deceit and marriage, and - most crucially - both are split in two, with the husband's recounting of the relationship paired with the wife's complicating narrative corrective. In a strange way, the novels contain within themselves their own sequels. The success these books enjoyed has revealed how eager American readers are not only for plot-thick page-turners written in decent prose but

Six books that you should have read already

Books that do what great literature promises - keep you engrossed and make you think

For the love of reading

At first glance, it is not much of a library: two shelves of about 1,600 books and magazines in a basement room deep into a dusty alley of adobe homes in rural Panjwai District, in southern Afghanistan. The mattresses and blankets stacked in the corner still give the vibe of the guest quarters the room once was.But the register shows how parts of the community here, particularly younger residents, have come to value any chance to indulge their curiosity, in a place that was at the heart of the original Taliban uprising in the 1990s and became a watchword for the tragedy and deprivation brought by war.Hassanullah, 18, checked out General History. Muhammad Rahim, 27, came for The Fires of Hell, which he returned the next day; it was soon borrowed by a 12-year-old named Nabi. Taher Agha, 15, preferred Of Love and the Beloved, keeping it for 10 days. Another young man, about to marry, called ahead to make sure there was a copy of Homemaking. He rode his bicycle six miles to pick it up.The