Although in recent times we have been talking more and more about the censorship imposed by the authorities of some US states on the maintenance of libraries, for America the news about books is not only negative. On the contrary, since the pandemic, which helped the publishing space and revitalized the audience of American bibliophiles, a few small independent bookstores have increasingly “grown up” in the country. Growth continued in 2022, with the American Booksellers Association reaching its highest level in over 20 years. The Association added 173 members last year and now has 2,185 bookstores in 2,599 locations.

writing about water

Omani writer Zahran Al-Qasimi has been awarded the 16th International Arabic Literature Prize (IPAF) 2023 for his book The Water Soothsayer, as announced yesterday during an online event in Abu Dhabi. The award includes a $50,000 cash prize and funding for an English translation of the novel, an initiative to promote the book globally and increase its sales. The story takes readers to a village in Oman where the protagonist works in search of hidden sources deep underground. At the heart of the story is the aflaj, an irrigation system that is an integral part of village life in Oman and the subject of many stories and legends.

For pandemics, old and new

Historian Simon Shama’s very interesting book, Foreign Bodies, is supposedly an account of epidemiologists who studied the natural history of infectious diseases from the late 18th to early 20th centuries, developed vaccines, and saved millions of people from smallpox, cholera, and plague. But as the subtitle “Pandemic, Vaccines and the Health of the Nations” suggests, it is also a reflection of the political and scientific conflicts exposed during the COVID pandemic and the inability of today’s leaders to coordinate a common, evidence-based, global response. to the virus.