Despite widespread deployment, nearly a third of Americans have not embraced broadband, said an attendee at the Digital Inclusion Summit, an event co-hosted by the Federal Communications Commission and the Knight Foundation.

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What’s Your Reaction’ Winning poet Brendon Davis at Saturday’s event.

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We like our gay friends sassy and reasonable. And Juliet Capulet certainly could’ve used a sassy gay friend as she was about to commit suicide. He would’ve doled out blunt advice like, “I think you’re fourteen and you’re idiot.”

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IRANIAN authorities prevented a prominent female poet and activist in her 80s from travelling to Paris to attend an event marking International Women’s Day yesterday.

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Spring came last week and so did its first notable event, though not in a flowering, an emerging or a singing, but in a publication: Richard Mabey published his essays. It might still be freezing outside, but getting hold of A Brush With Nature in early March was like being given an unseasonable spell of warm weather in which everything in the natural world suddenly bursts into life.

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What’s Your Reaction’ [Editor's note: This talk was originally delivered in slightly different form at the St. Mark's Poetry Project on January 25, 2010.]

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What’s Your Reaction’

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The National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth reverses a decision to close on Saturdays.

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Ancient Hoghton Tower could stage more historical dramas after the success of a play about legendary bard William Shakespeare’s rumoured stay there.

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MI5 considered Irish playwright Brendan Behan to be “too unstable and too drunken” to be dangerous, newly released files show.

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It’s 11.45am and the Central Hall in Westminster is heaving with yakking schoolkids. Fifteen-year-olds, with iPods, notebooks and temporarily customised uniforms, file up the stairs chattering like jackdaws, as though at a hip-hop gig.

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The many friends who loved him knew the critic, writer and broadcaster Patrick O’Connor as a polymath repository of knowledge. His subjects ranged from music hall performers to French poster art, from cinema to ballet, and from opera to food. With a forever-youthful sparkle in his eye and a talent for friendship, he was a large cuddly bear of a man, tall and sometimes mistaken for the actor …

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An exploration of the world of libraries and librarians, via a tour of eccentric characters and unlikely locations.

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Apple and Amazon could be creating an interesting turf war over the future of books and whether eBook or print will be the primary launch format. Most major publishers have made deals with Apple for eBook content and have come to an agreement on pricing that may force Amazon to concede to higher prices for eBooks than their current insistence on $9.99.

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Owners wished they’d waited for the Apple offering Punters out to buy an e-book reader seem set on Apple’s iPad, a survey of 3171 US consumers has revealed.…

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What’s Your Reaction’ Books rights to The Other Life of Samuel Johnson were recently acquired by Penguin, which appears to have cornered the market on classics gone wild.

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By your ma a viewer, get free books Looking for a Mothers’ Day gift for your literature-loving mum’ Sony has a suggestion: a special edition e-book reader ready to be loaded with a female friendly digital library.… Web threats: Why conventional protection doesn’t work

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Gordon Brown has long given the impression that he was lukewarm about a war that he did not instigate but in which, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, he was complicit. Today, facing five and a half hours of questioning before the Chilcot inquiry, he can no longer remain on the sidelines.

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More often than not the bright-eyed ardor of small press youth fizzles into baleful middle age and retreat. It’s sad, but not unexpected given the economic and social realities of the literary world.

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Long after Hemingway and the Beats, the Shakespeare and Company bookshop is still encouraging Paris to read and write I’ve been to Paris many times. But, while I invariably wind up at La Belle Hortense for a browse over a glass of red, I’d yet to sample the charms of legendary English bookshop Shakespeare and Company . The first Shakespeare and Company, run by Sylvia Beach at rue de l’Odéon, was …

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A tale of two cryogenically frozen children from the 1950s brought back to life in 2009, by author Ali Sparkes, wins the Blue Peter book of the year award.

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Freelance Advisor is an important resource that aims to be your first point of call for everything freelance, from advice about your career, accounts and taxation to guides on setting up business, marketing yourself and finding work.

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More than 17,500 customers of National Theatre in London are asked to reset their online passwords after the organisation’s website is hacked.

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HAMLET *** TOLBOOTH, STIRLING

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POETS FOR HAITI **** QUEEN’S HALL, EDINBURGH

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A Chinese poet claims he was blocked from leaving the country for a 13th time as he tried to board a flight to participate in Europe’s largest literary festival in Cologne.

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A discussion of Joyce’s two major collections, Chamber Music and Pomes Penyeach with actors Oengus Macnamara and Mark Ryan.

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There may have been many memorial tributes to jazz legends that have ended, as Sir John Dankworth’s did yesterday, with a stirring rendition of When the Saints go Marching In — but few that have also taken in along the way Bach, Shakespeare, Tomorrow’s World , Princess Margaret and some truly terrible jokes.

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What’s Your Reaction’ The 57-year-old novelist said that society ran on a “male timetable” which dictated that women should have babies at an older age.

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David Remnick’s book, based on hundreds of interviews with the president and close associates, will be published in the US in April, and in the UK in May Pulitzer prize-winning author and New Yorker editor David Remnick’s biography of Barack Obama has been snapped up for UK publication just days after it was announced in the US. Picador will publish Remnick’s The Bridge: The Life and Rise of …

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What organisers describe as a “once in a lifetime” line-up of poets gather in Edinburgh, to raise money for Haiti.

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THE cream of the country’s poets took to the stage last night in a unique literary line-up to raise money for victims of the Haiti earthquake.

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One of the strange by-products of the digital revolution that we are going through at the moment is that no one seems to know how big anything should be.

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It was awesome, awe-inspiring, amazing, and… boring’ In the 24 hours since President Obama sat down with Congress, we’ve all had time to reflect on…

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Raymond Scott appeared Friday in a court in Newcastle in northeastern England. He is charged with theft, handling stolen goods and removing criminal property. His trial was set for June.

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In previous installments of Charles Dickens’ article “Spitalfields,” that he published in his weekly journal “Household Words” on 5th April 1851, we accompanied Dickens and his sub-editor W.H.Wills to a silk warehouse, a Ragged School and a weaver’s loft, with Mr Broadelle, manager of the silk warehouse as our guide.

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Fictional portrayals of women’s life in the Victorian and Edwardian asylum system are the best way of learning about the harrowing experience of being branded a “lunatic” On a recent trip to my favourite secondhand book shop , I found a 1928 edition of Rupert Brooke ’s poetry. As was common at the time, the name of the owner is written inside. The address, however, was more of a surprise: Royal …

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Theatre-goers can’t move for star-cross’d lovers this spring. These days, though, it’s not enough merely to stage the greatest romantic tragedy of them all: you need an angle.

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Few Bretons have devoted their lives to promoting their culture with the flair and dogged determination shown by Bernard Le Nail. He was a leading member of the cultural movement in Brittany, which struggles to maintain its identity in the face of hostility from the French state and often the indifference of its own people. Nail worked hard for more than 30 years to demonstrate the richness and …

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Paul Taylor is like a dreamer whose visions are all his own but are impelled by music being played by other people in the next room.

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What’s Your Reaction’ A man was killed by a falling snow-covered tree branch in Central Park earlier this afternoon. In July of 2009 a Google employee was knocked into a coma by a falling tree branch while he was walking through the park.

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A Devon theatre is placed into administration after information presented to trustees revealed it was insolvent.

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On Tuesday, Valery Gergiev and the Maryinsky Orchestra and Chorus landed at Carnegie Hall for the first of three concerts.

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What a treat. Waiting for Godot in the West End. A classic of the modern theatre, performed by a crack cast of veterans led by the venerable Sir Ian McKellen as Estragon. “His huge hams of hands are eloquently deployed throughout and his big rheumy eyes rake the void, and the auditorium, without beseeching our sympathy or cheap laughter”, wrote Michael Coveney in The Independent, reviewing the …

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Whoa there, Jeffrey Archer is out’ I’m out too Documents released as a result of last week’s hearing into Google’s book-scanning settlement reveal thousands of authors asked to be excluded from the project.… Case Study: WhatsUp keeps Legoland turnstyles ringing

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On the last Friday of every month, poet Paul Sherreard spends the morning visiting inpatient and outpatient areas around Guy’s Hospital and St Thomas’ Hospital performing poetry and holding workshops with patients.

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Senior civil servant dined with Andrew Rawnsley, whose book sparked the bullying allegations against Mr Brown.

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Not sure there’s enough money in it Acer has put its plan to develop an e-book reader on hold while it watches how the market develops, a senior executive has said.… Web threats: Why conventional protection doesn’t work

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Daniel Robinson, V3.co.uk , Tuesday 23 February 2010 at 00:15:00 Digital book retailer partners with UK publishers Digital book retailer Kobo has launched a UK presence, offering e-books for download from an online store, along with free reader software for smartphones and Mac or PC systems. Formerly known as Shortcovers, Kobo offers a unique cloud-based service that lets consumers build up an e …

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What’s Your Reaction’ Barack Obama’s life and political evolution will be detailed in a new biography of the president called “The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama” by New Yorker editor David Remnick, publisher Knopf announced today.

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