Christopher Tolkien has died at 95. The youngest son of Lord of the Rings author was responsible for editing and publishing much of his father’s work, according Nicola Slawson from The Guardian… Support our news coverage by subscribing to our Kindle Nation Daily Digest. Joining is free right now!

Christopher Tolkien, the son of Lord Of The Rings author JRR Tolkien, has died aged 95, the Tolkien Society has announced. The society, which promotes the life and works of the celebrated writer, released a short statement on Twitter to confirm the news.

The statement said: “Christopher Tolkien has died at the age of 95. The Tolkien Society sends its deepest condolences to Baillie, Simon, Adam, Rachel and the whole Tolkien family.”

Tolkien, who was born in Leeds in 1924, was the third and youngest son of the revered fantasy author and his wife Edith. He grew up listening to his father’s tales of Bilbo Baggins, which later became the children’s fantasy novel, The Hobbit.

He drew many of the original maps detailing the world of Middle-earth for his father’s The Lord of the Rings when the series was first published between 1954 and 55. He also edited much of his father’s posthumously published work following his death in 1973. Since 1975 he had lived in France with Baillie.

Tolkien Society chairman Shaun Gunner praised Christopher’s commitment to his father’s work and said: “Millions of people around the world will be forever grateful to him … We have lost a titan and he will be sorely missed.”

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Teen book club founder created a ‘brotherhood’ with African-American boys through reading, according to Kelly McCarthy from ABC News… Support our news coverage by subscribing to our Kindle Nation Daily Digest. Joining is free right now!

Sidney Keys III told “Good Morning America” that his idea to create Books N Bros was born from his own setbacks and struggles.

“I used to have a really bad stutter in elementary school and I would get teased for it,” he said. “Reading was kind of my escape from my stutter because in my head I was able to visualize things — and play out all the events clearly.”

He said he wanted to start up Books N Bros “so that I could talk to other people, and especially boys, about books that I love to read because it’s like a brotherhood.”

The reading club that he started at just 10 years old, with the help of his mom Winnie Caldwell, now has over 250 “bros” ages 7 to 13 from all over the U.S. and Canada.

“I’m extremely proud. He’s grown into such a leader over the last few years,” Caldwell said. “I remember the first time we had a meetup of seven boys and we grew from seven boys to 30 boys and he was so scared to talk in front of 30 people and since then he’s spoken to a group of over 3,000 people, so he continues to amaze me.”

The book club chooses works that celebrate black culture and African-American literature as well as entrepreneurship, financial literacy and more.

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When reflecting on the books that have influenced her the career the most, Annie Jean-Baptiste mentions one book… Support our news coverage by subscribing to our Kindle Nation Daily Digest. Joining is free right now!

As head of product inclusion at Google, Annie Jean-Baptiste works to ensure that the products and services Google offers are inclusive and reflective of the diverse audience the company serves.

Since starting at Google nine years ago, the 31-year-old has served as an account manager and a diversity programs manager before stepping into her current role two years ago. When reflecting on the books that have influenced her the career the most, Jean-Baptiste tells CNBC Make It Adam Grant’s “Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World,” comes to mind.

“Just given that sometimes you’re in a space that’s new and a little bit uncharted, I think that reading about people who have started something from scratch or started something that people didn’t totally get at first is interesting,” she says. “It’s just really interesting to see how they build that consensus up from the ground floor.”

In Grant’s bestselling book, the Wharton School professor uses data and research to show readers what it takes to bring an original idea to life. He also challenges the belief that you have to take a crazy amount of risk in order to birth a great idea.

“You don’t have to be a round peg in a square hole to be original,” Grant said on CNBC’s “On the Money” in 2016. “In fact, many originals hate taking risks.”

For example, he says, “If you look at the data, entrepreneurs who avoid risk by saying, ‘You know what, I’m going to keep my day job before I go all in’ are 33% less likely to fail.”

Though Grant’s book may be perceived as a read that focuses on entrepreneurship, Jean-Baptiste can relate to the idea of building something from the ground up, considering her current role at Google was non-existent a few years ago.

Read full post by Courtney Connley for CNBC

Buy your copy of Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World here

“Patricia Highsmith slept with a man experimentally, much as one tries tripe to see if one develops a taste for it” says Peter Wells from The Spinoff… Support our news coverage by subscribing to our Kindle Nation Daily Digest. Joining is free right now!

Graham Greene called her ‘the poet of ambiguity’. He was tipping his hat to another author who specialized in a kind of moral gloom striated by tension, crackling with sexual electricity. Patricia Highsmith is best known as a crime writer whose bent arrow novels have been snatched up for the silver screen. Hitchcock the master was the first in the queue, paying her a measly $7500 with no further rights for that wriggling can of worms, her debut novel, Strangers on a Train (1950). This novel set the pattern really, for tales of obsessive gazing, double identities told in a swift and economic narrative style. The truly astonishing thing is that Highsmith’s next novel was the small and daring masterpiece The Price of Salt, now reissued and retitled as Carol, to tie in with the new movie version starring Cate Blanchett.

Everything about this novel is unusual. Its title, first of all. It was usual for lesbian novels of the time to be plangent, almost complaining – as in I Walk Alone. Other titles aimed for a kind of sexual tease that allowed women but also randy straight males to toy with the possibilities – Dormitory Women, I Prefer Girls‘. But this was where Price of Salt with its nod to literary values (the title it came from a line in Gide’s The Counterfeiters) was also unusual.

The book fitted within a context of almost underground lesbian writing of the 1950s – yet it sold a million copies. The novel was a great hit in anyone’s terms, despite Highsmith’s agent telling her she was committing career suicide by following up a successful debut with something so overt. This is where the novel is so innovative. It doesn’t have any of the usual period hesitations, explanations, parentheses. One leaps straight into the candour of an open heart. The word lesbian is never mentioned, however. Rather, one is taken into the emotions of a 19-year-old woman hungry for a certain kind of love. She has a boyfriend, of Russian descent who is boringly decent and morally blind. They are part of the demimonde of New York art wannabes.

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In Today’s No Duh News: People who read books are nicer than those who don’t according to The Language Nerds… Support our news coverage by subscribing to our Kindle Nation Daily Digest. Joining is free right now!

People often think that, yes, books make you smarter but at the same time people who read a lot struggle when it comes to social relationships. A new study reveals that this is not true. In fact, reading could actually make you a kinder, more empathetic person. It also makes you act in a socially acceptable manner.

The study, conducted by Kingston University in London, involved 124 participants. Participants were quizzed on their preferences for books, TV, and plays. They were also tested on interpersonal skills including how much they considered other people’s feelings and whether they acted to help others.

The study found that those who preferred books were more likely to act in a socially acceptable manner compared to those who preferred watching TV. Those who preferred watching TV, on the other hand, came across as less friendly and less understanding of others’ views.

However, not all types of books tend to have the same effect. The study shows that the type of literature you choose also has a huge impact on your emotional intelligence. In particular, the study revealed that fiction fans showed more positive social behavior while readers of drama and romance novels were found to be the most empathic. In the same vein, fans of experimental books were most able to see things from alternative perspectives, and readers who favored comedy fans were best at relating to others.

Read full post on The Language Nerds

The Oscars failed to nominate any women for best director… again. According to Poppy Noor from The Guardian, Stephen King is cool with that… Support our news coverage by subscribing to our Kindle Nation Daily Digest. Joining is free right now!

“Congratulations to those men,” quipped Issa Rae, reading out the all-male list of nominees for best director this year – reminiscent of Natalie Portman’s introduction of the “all-male nominees” last year. People wrote opinion pieces about the stereotypical roles for which people of color are awarded and reminded us that yes, there were female directors who were good enough for the best director slot this year, too.

Stephen King took a different stance. Early on Tuesday morning, he spoke about the three Oscars categories in which he is able to nominate: best picture, adapted screenplay and original screenplay. He said that diversity is not a consideration for him when he votes as a member of the Academy. “I would never consider diversity in matters of art. Only quality. It seems to me that to do otherwise would be wrong,” he said on Twitter.

He has since been criticized by leading Hollywood names and authors saying his argument centers on the idea that quality and diversity are mutually exclusive. The director Ava DuVernay called King’s comments “so backward and ignorant you want to go back to bed”. The writer Roxane Gay tweeted that she was disappointed that King only believed in “quality from one demographic”.

King later tried to clarify his comments, saying that he believed in giving people a fair shot, adding: “You can’t win awards if you’re shut out of the game.”

Some have been left unsatisfied with his response. The former Obama adviser Brittany Packnett tweeted that the way we measure quality remains exclusive, and that representation falls short when white narratives are the only ones deemed quality.

Read full post on The Guardian

The Romantic poets used to make fun of one another using (what else?) the kind of wordplay that reminds you they were basically all adolescent boys, according to Olivia Rutigliano from LitHub…  Support our news coverage by subscribing to our Kindle Nation Daily Digest. Joining is free right now!

According to Michael Wood’s recent essay in the London Review of Books, about Susan J. Wolfson’s academic book Romantic Shades and Shadows (published in August 2018 by Johns Hopkins Press), the poets used to make fun of William Wordsworth’s so-literary-it-can’t-be-real last name. Samuel Coleridge playfully referred to his own poem “The Nightingale” as “Bird’s worth,” while Lord Byron, ever the jokester, referred to Wordsworth as “Turdsworth.”

That’s right: “Turdsworth.”

Wood’s essay explores Wolfson’s arguments about the practice of reading, including “linguistic agencies” (this is the part emphasizing Wordsworth’s own uses of wordplay, as well as the ones he was humorously subjected to) and how the dead animate themselves through the written word. Which Lord Byron has definitely done, and he sounds like your nephews.

Wood’s article was circulated on Twitter this morning by Dr. Jonathan Potter, a Victorianist, who was surprised and delighted by the discovery of Wordsworth’s moniker. As are we all, sir. AS ARE WE ALL.

See full post on LitHub