buzz

Photo of Hall 6.0 of the Frankfurt Book Fair — Hall 6.0 of the Frankfurt Book Fair (or Frankfurt Buchmesse) from above.

“It’s massive.” “It’s where everything happens.” “It is the largest book fair in the world.” “There’s a shuttle that gets you from hall to hall.” “It is really big.” The four NYU MS in Publishing: Digital and Print Media students volunteering at the Frankfurt Book Fair heard plenty of such descriptions in the days leading up to our trip. When Namrata Das, Mary Moates, Marinda Valenti and I stepped into the Fair’s main hall last week, we totally concurred: the Frankfurter Buchmesse, as the locals know it, is truly gigantic. Over 275,000 visitors were counted; 9,300 journalists reported from the event, which took place in the Messe, a fairgrounds so large it has its own train and subway stations. Making our way through the airport-like moving walkways that connected the halls, we greeted the largest book fair in the world with awe. [Read more…] about Frankfurt Book Fair 2015: Chocolate, Connections, and a Little Controversy

M.S. in Publishing Students Peraza, Cox, Flavin, Olivares (back row), and Werthan, Narasimhan and George formed a social media committee for WBN.

To the literati of the world, April 23rd used to have special meaning as the day Shakespeare was born and Cervantes died. This year, the date took on even more significance as longtime book lovers and new readers alike participated in a nationwide movement that is likely to become as addictive as a juicy novel. On April 23rd, World Book Night (WBN) debuted in the U.S. after a successful launch last year in the United Kingdom. All over America, volunteers from all 50 states handed out books to non-readers and reluctant readers in an effort to promote literacy. “Givers,” selected through an application process online, passed out 500,000 free paperbacks in churches, bars, children’s shelters, public transit systems and senior centers—even on beaches. (One innovative “giver” put copies of Patti Smith’s Just Kids inside Ziploc bags and doled them out in Monterey Bay.) Now, who better to promote this kind of national literary love fest than the students in the Master of Science in Publishing: Digital & Print Media program at NYU?