Latest News: March, 2011

In case you missed it: Douglas Rushkoff and Micah L. Sifry were in conversation last night at McNally Jackson

Tuesday, March 29th, 2011

Douglas Rushkoff and Micah Sifry at McNally Jackson

“People want magic. We’re all looking for transcendence…but we’re still not finding it.” —WikiLeaks and the Age of Transparency author Micah Sifry, last night at McNally Jackson, talking about our fascination with new technology (and why we’re simultaneously consumed by it and disappointed with it).

Look for the video of the event on C-SPAN’s Book TV. Read more about the event on This OR That: The OR Books Blog.

Eileen Myles is a finalist for not one but two important literary awards for LGBT fiction

Thursday, March 17th, 2011

Eileen Myles is a finalist for the 2011 Ferro-Grumley Awards for LGBT Fiction and for the 23rd Annual Lambda Literary Awards.

TWEETS FROM TAHRIR is featured in the New Yorker AND the New York Times

Monday, March 7th, 2011

Tweets from Tahrir

From the New Yorker’s piece, “The Book of Egypt Tweets:”

Galleycat reported yesterday that OR Books, an on-demand publisher that describes itself as dedicated to “progressive change in politics, culture and the way we do business,” has announced the release later this month of “Tweets from Tahrir,” an edited collection of Twitter posts that played an essential role in the recent uprising and ouster of Mubarak in Egypt. Alex Nunns, a British journalist, and Nadia Idle, an Egyptian who was on the ground in Cairo during the protests, began archiving tweets as they were posted, and have been combing through feeds ever since to build a portrait of, as Nunns tweeted in February, a “1st draft [of] history.”

Read more at newyorker.com

From the New York Times piece, “‘Tweets From Tahrir’ Collects Egypt Posts in a Book:”

Some of the earliest and most raw reports of the revolution in Egypt were published on Twitter. Now an enterprising publisher, OR Books, has gathered many of those Twitter messages for a book, “Tweets From Tahrir,” a narrative of the revolution told in snippets of 140 characters or less.

In a feat of nearly real-time publishing, the book will be released on April 21, a little over two months after the revolution unseated Egypt’s president. It will be sold for $12 in paperback form and $10 in e-book form.

Read more at nytimes.com.

Mediabistro features OR Books’ forthcoming title TWEETS FROM TAHRIR

Thursday, March 3rd, 2011

On April 21st, OR Books will publish Tweets from Tahrir: Egypt’s Revolution as It Unfolded, in the Words of the People Who Made It, a collection of dispatches and photographs from Twitter users during Egypt’s dramatic transfer of power last month.

The book contains “a selection of key tweets in a compelling, fast-paced narrative, allowing the story of the uprising to be told directly by the people in Cairo’s Tahrir Square.” The collection will be edited by Alex Nunns and Nadia Idle, with a foreward by author Ahdaf Soueif.

Read more at Mediabistro