Read Together book announced – and it’s ‘that octopus book’

Arts & Culture, Books

A best-selling novel about a woman’s friendship with a giant Pacific octopus has been named the 2024 Read Together Palm Beach County book.The Literacy Coalition of Palm Beach County announced the selection of “Remarkably Bright Creatures” by Shelby Van Pelt, published in 2022, during the group’s annual Mayors’ Literacy Initiative Luncheon on Thursday at the West Palm Beach Marriott.More than 2 million copies of the novel have been sold, and it spent a total of more than a year on the New York Times Hardcover Bestseller list. In the two years since its debut, “Remarkably Bright Creatures” has had 30 reprintings, and the novel received the 2023 McLaughlin-Esstman-Stearns First Novel Prize. It also was a “Read with Jenna” pick for the Today Show’s book club.The novel tells the story of a 70-year-old widow who cleans the aquarium where the octopus, Marcellus, lives. “Remarkably Bright Creatures” earned the nickname of “that octopus book,” so much so that the U.K. edition of the novel features that tagline across the top of its cover.This marks the coalition’s 14th Read Together campaign, a “one-book, one-community” event that aims to bring together adults throughout Palm Beach County to read the same book at the same time, the Literacy Coalition said. Past books in the biennial campaign include “The Story of Arthur Truluv” by Elizabeth Berg in 2022 and “The Nickel Boys” by Colson Whitehead in 2020.”Read Together brings our community together,” said Kristin Calder, the Literacy Coalition’s chief executive officer. “As we discuss themes and the story of a book, we make connections over shared experiences while also learning different perspectives. The book this year is about love, loss, family, second chances, and there’s even a little mystery to be solved. It’s a heartwarming, easy read that is surprisingly narrated in parts by an octopus.”As part of the Read Together campaign, the Palm Beach County Library System and the coalition’s community partners will host book discussions and events throughout November.Van Pelt will attend and speak at the Read Together Finale on Nov. 18 at Palm Beach State College’s Duncan Theatre in Lake Worth Beach.It was announced in August that the novel is being adapted into a film, with actor Sally Field reported to be on board as the lead.”Remarkably Bright Creatures” is available in hardcover and audio at local libraries and bookstores. Copies of the hardcover book are available from the Literacy Coalition for a $20 donation.The Literacy Coalition on Thursday also announced that the 19th annual Read for the Record book this year is “Piper Chen Sings” by Phillipa Soo. The event, scheduled this year for Oct. 24, brings together leaders, businesses and volunteers who distribute hundreds of books to Palm Beach County schools and child care centers and then read to tens of thousands of local students.Municipalities throughout Palm Beach County also engage in a friendly competition to see which can read to the most students on the day of the Read for the Record. Last year’s winners were Wellington in the large municipality category, Palm Springs as the mid-size municipality and Lantana as the small municipality.For more information, go to literacypbc.org.Kristina Webb is a reporter for Palm Beach Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach her at [email protected]. Subscribe today to support our journalism.

UK overhauls tourist entry rules

Travel

Beginning January 8, anyone who wishes to visit the United Kingdom would have to register ahead of time in a specialized digital system and pay £50 per person; ‘Digitization allows for a seamless experience for the millions crossing the border annually,’ says senior official

Sports exhibit coming to Buffalo Museum of Science

Science and Health

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Have you wondered about the science behind sports?
The Buffalo Museum of Science on Friday announced plans for a new sports-focused science exhibit. The museum is teaming up with the Buffalo Bills and Sabres for the project.
Visitors will be able to measure the how loud fans cheer, translate sports statistics, and design their own mascot.
“There’s a connection between living in Buffalo and liking sports. It’s what we do here, and so if we can connect that to science and connect that to STEM education, that’s a win-win,” State Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes said on Friday.
The new exhibit is set to open next fall.

Is the information age a ‘Crisis of Narration’? This book says yes

Arts & Culture, Books

The Crisis of Narration

Byung-Chul Han

100 pages; Polity

$16.95

We live, we often hear, in a world full of information, deracinated data stamping out all the humanity from our lives. The Catholic Korean-born German philosopher Byung-chul Han, recently hailed as an internet sensation, offers one such account in The Crisis of Narration. The slim volume of essays suggests that the real harm of information is that it has displaced a more essential practice of human life: narration.
This argument, Han recognizes, might sound odd, because we seem to hear about narrative all the time. Corporations hire writers for data storytelling. Cognitive behavioral therapists and self-help gurus invite patients to investigate the stories they tell themselves. News media and elected officials construct political narratives to keep supporters in their orbit.
But The Crisis of Narration suggests that these are narratives in name only; they don’t have the world-making power of myth or religious ritual. True narration, for Han, “unites things and events, even trifling, insignificant or incidental things, into a story.” In other words, it infuses the world around us with meaning.
We don’t live in that kind of world, the book argues; we live in a world where disjointed, inhuman information saturates social media platforms, smart devices and news media. In contrast to narrative, which enters into human experience, information is “unavailable,” “disenchanting,” “fragmenting” and “mechanical.”

Social media is Han’s most frequent target. Though platforms like Instagram brand their content as “Stories,” they contain only “information adorned with images — information that is briefly registered and then disappears.”

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The Crisis of Narration is written in the same style as Han’s previous books (most famously Psychopolitics and The Burnout Society): aphoristic, terse, more like a German Romantic philosopher than a contemporary academic. Few sentences run long; almost no paragraphs take up more than a few lines.

The benefit is that Han’s writing is fairly readable. The downside is that there’s little nuance to his ideas, which becomes increasingly clear as the book progresses. Each chapter spends about half its length liberally quoting a small cadre of 20th-century existentialist philosophers, then drawing tenuous connections to the present world.
The result is less a critical dialogue and more a regurgitation. Han cites Martin Heidegger, peppers in a paragraph about smartphones, then wraps things up.

It isn’t necessarily a problem to draw on decades-old thinkers (many of Han’s touchstones, like Walter Benjamin, offer prescient accounts of contemporary society). But Han is an abler reader of interwar philosophy than he is of modern digital life. As he attempts to integrate 20th-century philosophy into an account of the present, critiques become half-baked screeds: Snapchat is fleeting; Facebook and Instagram are disingenuous; selfies are shallow; children search for “digital Easter Eggs” instead of wonderment; photographs cut us off from the world.

There might be something worth exploring in each of these arguments, but Han eschews evidence and nuance in favor of superficial clichés. Nowhere is this more evident than his blithe assertion that humans have transformed from homo sapiens into “phono sapiens.” His arguments are only slightly more polished versions of underinformed technophobia.

An especially curious element of Han’s writing in The Crisis of Narration is his romanticized vision of Christianity, particularly medieval Catholicism. For Han, the Middle Ages represent a moment in which the world was saturated with narrative meaning and everything, every “nook and cranny of life,” was given significance by Christian ritual. Truth was not “contingent, exchangeable, and modifiable” as it supposedly is now, because religion (he says) “narrates contingency away.”
“An outbreak of the plague was not pure, simple information,” he argues elsewhere. “It was integrated into the Christian narrative of sin.”
Han has clarified that he does not believe in “reactivating” the “Christian narrative,” since it has “lost power” in the Western world. But it’s difficult to read his antimodern jeremiad outside the context of resurgent traditionalism. To be sure, Han is citing Jean-Paul Sartre, not G.K. Chesterton. But the core of his argument is that the (so-called) premodern faith in narrative has decayed into a superficial culture that lacks the “rituals” that might give life meaning. We live, he insists, in a depraved world.
In this postlapsarian angst, Han holds tight to the idea that there were halcyon days where people used religion to make meaning instead of tweeting. But this account of premodern Christianity is questionable. 

Certainly, Christianity was a powerful cultural force. But much writing of the period, like the ribald and often anticlerical humor of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales or the profound anxiety of William Langland’s Piers Plowman, reflect that the Christian narrative never really “narrated contingency away.” Uncertainty has always existed — Christian doubt is as old as Christianity itself. 

These kinds of activities represent the heart of Christian practice: finding God in the world that we’ve found ourselves in. 
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On the flipside, Han’s romantic approach to narrative prevents him from seeing how modern narrative practices, especially Christian ones, are engaging with the world of information.

An Instagram image might seem fragmentary, but the act of sharing can itself be a meaning-making ritual — as when a candid selfie of a sleep-deprived mother can become a site for sharing honest conversations about parenting and cultivating the beloved community virtually.
A Twitter timeline might seem to render world news as rarefied facts, but, as in the case of the obscene violence of the invasion of Gaza, these facts can also be transmuted into stories, holy icons and rituals.
A scroll of random video reels might seem disjointed, but reflective prayer — the act of narrativizing one’s experiences before God — can illuminate the Holy Spirit’s movements through the touching personal humor or novel knowledge or immense frustrations of social media.
These kinds of activities represent the heart of Christian practice: finding God in the world that we’ve found ourselves in. It’s true, information poses new challenges. We need thoughtful discernment and the courage to find new ways of narrativizing the human relationship with God. But even in the world of information, humans continue to narrate graced meaning.
Han’s argument might be compelling if you already believe everything he says before you start reading the book. But his reactionary logic misses the vibrant narrative activity that continues to pulse through our digital lives. 

Mystery of ‘alien song’ heard in one of the deepest points in the ocean finally solved after baffling scientists for 10 years

Science and Health

Noises in the Mariana Trench that left researchers scratching their heads have finally been solved, and it’s not what you think.OK, so when you hear terms like ‘alien song’, you’re going to conjure up some sort of sci-fi Fifth Element scene of an actual alien singing, but this isn’t the same thing.The 36,000ft deep trench is home to a range of weird and wonderful creatures, but apparently, one of those things could be an alien…Well, that’s what some have thought for the last 10 years after hearing a strange noise deep at the floor of the Pacific Ocean.It all began in 2014 when sounds were recorded coming from the trench which lasted around 2.5 and 3.5 seconds.Because researchers had absolutely no idea what these sounds were, they called them ‘biotwangs’ (unidentified sounds) and left it at that.However, scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have decided to re-examine the files to finally get to the bottom of this mystery, and what they found was nothing short of a pleasant discovery.So, before we continue further – I’m going to hold your hand and tell you that there was no alien crooning out songs down the bottom of the Mariana Trench.It should be obvious, but just to be sure, no alien lives down there.The Mariana Trench is the deepest point in the sea (Xinhua)Instead, they found something unexpected.The team of researchers used underwater gliders to conduct acoustic surveys in the deep water.That’s when they could hear deep moaning sounds which came out at around 38 and 8,000 hertz, leaving scientists confused again.It was only in 2016 that the first idea was thrown out there, proposing that the sounds were likely being created by a baleen whale, and that this was some sort of new call.Sharon Nieukirk, senior faculty research assistant in marine bioacoustics at Oregon State University (OSU), explained: “It’s very distinct, with all these crazy parts.“The low-frequency moaning part is typical of baleen whales, and it’s that kind of twangy sound that makes it really unique.“We don’t find many new baleen whale calls.”Bryde’s whales are the culprit (Getty Stock Image)But now that researchers have re-examined the noises using the acoustic data as well as visual data, it’s not a far-off idea.The new study, which was led by Dr Ann Allen, figured that while it’s not a baleen whale call, it was the call of Bryde’s whales.The findings, which have been published in the Frontiers in Marine Science journal, explained: “It was assumed to be produced by a baleen whale, but without visual verification it was impossible to assign a species.“Using a combination of visual and acoustic survey data collected in the Mariana Archipelago, we determined that biotwangs are produced by Bryde’s whales.”To figure out that it was them that were creating the call, researchers used artificial intelligence to confirm their findings.The study stated: “We used a combination of manual and machine learning annotation methods to detect biotwangs in our extensive historical passive acoustic monitoring datasets collected across the central and western North Pacific.“We identified a consistent seasonal presence of biotwangs in the Mariana Archipelago and to the east at Wake Island, with occasional occurrence as far away as the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands and near the equator (Howland Island).”Dr Allen explained to Popular Science: “It’s possible that they use the biotwang as a contact call, a sort of ‘Marco Polo’ of the ocean.“But we need more information before we can say for sure.”

‘Apartment 7A’ Movie Review: Paramount+ Prequel To ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ Is Unsurprisingly Bad

Arts & Culture, Film & TV

Prequels to horror movies are a common practice. Based on audience reactions, a filmmaker’s interest, or the production house’s lust for the big bucks, some character or element from the original film is picked up and fleshed out via a story set in the narrative’s past. And the results are always very hit or miss. Final Destination 5 mostly played out like a standalone film and only revealed that it was a prequel at the end, thereby surprising everyone. Paranormal Activity 3, despite its insane box-office run, felt like an unnecessary addition to the franchise. Prey was so good that it almost surpassed the quality of Predator. Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist was a huge mess. The First Omen impressed critics and audiences but seemed pretty unoriginal to me. Orphan: First Kill was straight-up bad. Prometheus was lambasted for being an unnecessary addition to the Alien franchise but has recently gotten a lot of praise. Pearl was pretty pointless. Insidious: The Last Key was alright, and so was The Nun. So which way has the proverbial pendulum swung for Apartment 7A? Let’s find out.

Natalie Erika James’ Apartment 7A, written by Natalie, Christian White, and Skylar James, tells the story of Terry Gionoffrio. Yes, that’s the same Terry Gionoffrio who briefly met Rosemary Woodhouse in Rosemary’s Baby and then plummeted to her death a few moments later while wearing the tannis root pendant on her neck. So, you already know what’s written in her destiny. Still, you follow her as a budding dancer trying to break into the cutthroat industry of, well, dancing. To make things worse, Terry gets badly injured while practicing a complex move, due to which she is rejected from every audition. Desperate to impress a popular figure in her profession, Alan Marchand, Terry follows him to the Bramford but falls ill due to the medications she is taking to ease her pain and collapses at the apartment’s doorstep. She is taken in by Roman and Minnie Castevet, thereby bringing her closer to Marchand and also solving a major chunk of her financial issues (because rent in New York is high). Things even start to look up after a “dinner” with Marchand. However, eventually, Terry begins to realize that her ambition and dreams are about to cost her heavily.

I think I should make this one thing very clear before saying anything about Apartment 7A because it needs to be put out there: My appreciation for Rosemary’s Baby and my criticism of Apartment 7A is not an endorsement of Roman Polanski. With all that said, yes, Apartment 7A is plain bad. I don’t usually talk about films based on whether or not they’re necessary because that’s usually not how art is created. I say “usually,” because there are instances where production houses forcefully make a film to retain the rights to the IP. Regardless of the reason why this horror prequel has been made, its existence feels insanely unnecessary. Did I watch Rosemary’s Baby and wonder what happened to Terry Gionoffrio? No, I didn’t. Has the prequel somehow enriched Rosemary’s Baby? No, it hasn’t, because the character of Terry is essentially an amalgamation of Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse, and Terry’s character arc is very similar to that of Rosemary. So, what’s even the point?

The thing about the unexplained parts of Rosemary’s Baby is that they are self-explanatory. We don’t need origin stories for the Castevets, Doctor Sapirstein, or the Satanic cult because everything that they do in that original film is enough to ignite our sense of imagination. So, delving into all that in the most uninspired fashion possible makes Look What’s Happened To Rosemary’s Baby seem innovative and original (yes, I have watched the sequel to Rosemary’s Baby with my own two eyes). Apartment 7A falters in the one place where it could’ve surpassed the original: the visuals. Rosemary’s Baby was made in the late ‘60s and it seemingly feels timeless. While the possession sequence and the musical scenes are decent, the rest of the prequel looks like garbage. I mean, there are moments where you can clearly see that the lighting between the physical and CG sets don’t match or the coloring hasn’t been done properly. I don’t know how this has been released in such an irresponsible fashion. Also, what is Natalie Erika James saying that hasn’t been said before? What’s the point of retreading old ground while also messing with the continuity of the original film?

Coming to the performances in Apartment 7A, Julia Garner is fantastic. She is too good to be pouring her talent into this movie. Her vocal inflections, her body language, and the transformation she goes through—she feels like a bona fide movie star. There’s a close-up shot of Garner where she is looking at the poster of her upcoming theatrical performance, and it made me gasp. If that shot would’ve been in a better movie, it would’ve been one of the most iconic shots in film history. But now I don’t think anyone will notice it. Thankfully, Garner has been working with Leigh Whannell, Matt Shakman, and Zach Cregger, who will hopefully give the actress the story that’ll make her shine properly. Everyone else in the film is horribly miscast. Dianne Wiest is one of the best actors of all time, and there’s no doubt about that. However, she isn’t Minnie Castevet. Earlier this week, I was watching Agatha All Along, and I think Debra Jo Rupp would’ve been better in this very role. Kevin McNally is an excellent actor and has several fantastic roles under his belt. As Roman Castevet, it seems like he is bringing nothing to the table. Jim Sturgess is in the movie, and of course his talent is utterly wasted. The rest of the supporting cast is fine, I suppose.

When I learned about the existence of Apartment 7A, I kept wondering why it was being made. Despite my admiration for the craft, story, and acting in Rosemary’s Baby, it’s not a movie that I like to re-watch because of its association with Roman Polanski. So, making a whole prequel around that movie confused me. At one point, I thought that it was actually going to be a meta commentary on what Rosemary’s Baby stands for, and maybe it was going to wrestle with the film’s complicated legacy. But no, it was just a tired rehash of that original film that didn’t even utilize the acting skills of its talented cast or provide horror fans with some memorable visuals. Additionally, I think the themes and tropes of Rosemary’s Baby have already reached a point of saturation. This year alone, we got Immaculate and The First Omen, which are not only similar to each other but also take a leaf out of Ira Levin’s novel. Meanwhile, films like Mother!, False Positive, Delivery: The Beast Within, and Prevenge have taken Levin’s material and given it their own relevant spin. Apartment 7A has nothing going for it, and you’re better off watching the made-for-TV sequel (which is apparently available on YouTube for free), Look What’s Happened To Rosemary’s Baby.

‘Apartment 7A’ Movie Review: Paramount+ Prequel To ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ Is Unsurprisingly Bad

Arts & Culture, Film & TV

Prequels to horror movies are a common practice. Based on audience reactions, a filmmaker’s interest, or the production house’s lust for the big bucks, some character or element from the original film is picked up and fleshed out via a story set in the narrative’s past. And the results are always very hit or miss. Final Destination 5 mostly played out like a standalone film and only revealed that it was a prequel at the end, thereby surprising everyone. Paranormal Activity 3, despite its insane box-office run, felt like an unnecessary addition to the franchise. Prey was so good that it almost surpassed the quality of Predator. Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist was a huge mess. The First Omen impressed critics and audiences but seemed pretty unoriginal to me. Orphan: First Kill was straight-up bad. Prometheus was lambasted for being an unnecessary addition to the Alien franchise but has recently gotten a lot of praise. Pearl was pretty pointless. Insidious: The Last Key was alright, and so was The Nun. So which way has the proverbial pendulum swung for Apartment 7A? Let’s find out.

Natalie Erika James’ Apartment 7A, written by Natalie, Christian White, and Skylar James, tells the story of Terry Gionoffrio. Yes, that’s the same Terry Gionoffrio who briefly met Rosemary Woodhouse in Rosemary’s Baby and then plummeted to her death a few moments later while wearing the tannis root pendant on her neck. So, you already know what’s written in her destiny. Still, you follow her as a budding dancer trying to break into the cutthroat industry of, well, dancing. To make things worse, Terry gets badly injured while practicing a complex move, due to which she is rejected from every audition. Desperate to impress a popular figure in her profession, Alan Marchand, Terry follows him to the Bramford but falls ill due to the medications she is taking to ease her pain and collapses at the apartment’s doorstep. She is taken in by Roman and Minnie Castevet, thereby bringing her closer to Marchand and also solving a major chunk of her financial issues (because rent in New York is high). Things even start to look up after a “dinner” with Marchand. However, eventually, Terry begins to realize that her ambition and dreams are about to cost her heavily.

I think I should make this one thing very clear before saying anything about Apartment 7A because it needs to be put out there: My appreciation for Rosemary’s Baby and my criticism of Apartment 7A is not an endorsement of Roman Polanski. With all that said, yes, Apartment 7A is plain bad. I don’t usually talk about films based on whether or not they’re necessary because that’s usually not how art is created. I say “usually,” because there are instances where production houses forcefully make a film to retain the rights to the IP. Regardless of the reason why this horror prequel has been made, its existence feels insanely unnecessary. Did I watch Rosemary’s Baby and wonder what happened to Terry Gionoffrio? No, I didn’t. Has the prequel somehow enriched Rosemary’s Baby? No, it hasn’t, because the character of Terry is essentially an amalgamation of Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse, and Terry’s character arc is very similar to that of Rosemary. So, what’s even the point?

The thing about the unexplained parts of Rosemary’s Baby is that they are self-explanatory. We don’t need origin stories for the Castevets, Doctor Sapirstein, or the Satanic cult because everything that they do in that original film is enough to ignite our sense of imagination. So, delving into all that in the most uninspired fashion possible makes Look What’s Happened To Rosemary’s Baby seem innovative and original (yes, I have watched the sequel to Rosemary’s Baby with my own two eyes). Apartment 7A falters in the one place where it could’ve surpassed the original: the visuals. Rosemary’s Baby was made in the late ‘60s and it seemingly feels timeless. While the possession sequence and the musical scenes are decent, the rest of the prequel looks like garbage. I mean, there are moments where you can clearly see that the lighting between the physical and CG sets don’t match or the coloring hasn’t been done properly. I don’t know how this has been released in such an irresponsible fashion. Also, what is Natalie Erika James saying that hasn’t been said before? What’s the point of retreading old ground while also messing with the continuity of the original film?

Coming to the performances in Apartment 7A, Julia Garner is fantastic. She is too good to be pouring her talent into this movie. Her vocal inflections, her body language, and the transformation she goes through—she feels like a bona fide movie star. There’s a close-up shot of Garner where she is looking at the poster of her upcoming theatrical performance, and it made me gasp. If that shot would’ve been in a better movie, it would’ve been one of the most iconic shots in film history. But now I don’t think anyone will notice it. Thankfully, Garner has been working with Leigh Whannell, Matt Shakman, and Zach Cregger, who will hopefully give the actress the story that’ll make her shine properly. Everyone else in the film is horribly miscast. Dianne Wiest is one of the best actors of all time, and there’s no doubt about that. However, she isn’t Minnie Castevet. Earlier this week, I was watching Agatha All Along, and I think Debra Jo Rupp would’ve been better in this very role. Kevin McNally is an excellent actor and has several fantastic roles under his belt. As Roman Castevet, it seems like he is bringing nothing to the table. Jim Sturgess is in the movie, and of course his talent is utterly wasted. The rest of the supporting cast is fine, I suppose.

When I learned about the existence of Apartment 7A, I kept wondering why it was being made. Despite my admiration for the craft, story, and acting in Rosemary’s Baby, it’s not a movie that I like to re-watch because of its association with Roman Polanski. So, making a whole prequel around that movie confused me. At one point, I thought that it was actually going to be a meta commentary on what Rosemary’s Baby stands for, and maybe it was going to wrestle with the film’s complicated legacy. But no, it was just a tired rehash of that original film that didn’t even utilize the acting skills of its talented cast or provide horror fans with some memorable visuals. Additionally, I think the themes and tropes of Rosemary’s Baby have already reached a point of saturation. This year alone, we got Immaculate and The First Omen, which are not only similar to each other but also take a leaf out of Ira Levin’s novel. Meanwhile, films like Mother!, False Positive, Delivery: The Beast Within, and Prevenge have taken Levin’s material and given it their own relevant spin. Apartment 7A has nothing going for it, and you’re better off watching the made-for-TV sequel (which is apparently available on YouTube for free), Look What’s Happened To Rosemary’s Baby.

No novels shortlisted for National Book Prize after entries fall short of expectations

Arts & Culture, Books

The adjudication panel for the National Book Prize decided not to shortlist any titles in the Novels category in this year’s competition, saying the overall literary quality fell short of the expectations for a national award.
Additionally, while two finalists were shortlisted in the Short Stories in Maltese and English category, ultimately no prize was awarded for this category as both titles fell short of the minimum score of 90 marks.
“This choice reflects a commitment to maintaining the highest literary standards and ensuring that the integrity of the prize is preserved,” the National Book Council said.
The winning titles of the 2024 National Book Prize were selected from a shortlist of 61 titles, published in the preceding year, across 12 competitive categories: 49 books were shortlisted across six National Book Prize categories, and 27 books for children and young adults have been shortlisted in the six Terramaxka Prize categories. Adjudicators were asked to select a maximum of five entries for each shortlisted category.
Two special prizes were also bestowed during the ceremony. The prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award was conferred to Giovanni Bonello.
The award for Best Emergent Author was given to Ryan Falzon.
The members of the adjudication board of the 2024 National Book Prize and Terramaxka were Ruth Ancilleri, Robert Attard, Nicole Bugeja, Roderick Mallia, Omar ’N’ Shea, Maria Theuma, Mario Thomas Vassallo, Sherise Zammit and William Zammit.
The Terramaxka Prize this year celebrated several children’s books for their outstanding quality in both content and production. The adjudicators praised the books for their engaging themes, contemporary illustrations, and the creative way authors and illustrators addressed new and important topics for young readers. The winning titles stood out for their ability to capture the imagination of children, with visual storytelling that enhanced the reading experience and made complex subjects accessible to a younger audience. The overall high standard of entries reflected the growing quality of children’s literature in these categories.
National Book Prize for Adults 2024
Novels in Maltese and English
No shortlisted titles
Short Stories in Maltese and English
Prize not awarded
Poetry in Maltese and English
Għażiż Ġismi by Immanuel Mifsud (Klabb Kotba Maltin)
Drama
No longlisted titles
Translation
Il-Frammenti ta’ Saffo (Saffo) translated by Warren Bartolo (Ede Books)
Literary Non-Fiction in Maltese and English
Fejjaqtni Int: Rużar Briffa – u Jien by Paul P. Borg (Self-published)
Research
Vincenzo Bonello: His Legacy in Heritage edited by Theresa Vella (Kite Group)
Historiographic Research
Jacques François de Chambray: The Order He Served, the Island He Loved, and the Fort He Built by Joseph Scicluna (Kite Group)
Best Book Production
Ede Books for the book Il-Frammenti ta’ Saffo (Saffo) translated by Warren Bartolo
Lifetime Achievement Award
Giovanni Bonello
Award for Best Emergent Writer
Ryan Falzon
 
The Terramaxka Prize for Children and Young Adults 2024
Original Works for Children ages 0–7
Madame Ortensja Paskwalina De Rohan by Clare Azzopardi, illustrated by Moira Scicluna Zahra (Merlin Publishers)
Original Works for Children ages 8–12
Il-Każ tal-Kappell Ikkalibrat by Leanne Ellul, illustrated by Marisa Attard (Merlin Publishers)
Young Adult Literature
Iż-Żmien Kurjuż taż-Żgħożija edited by Clare Azzopardi and Glen Calleja (Aġenzija Żgħażagħ)
Translation for Children ages 0–7
Iddeverti Kemm Tiflaħ, Binti! (Mandy Archer; Shane Crampton ill.) translated by Janet Mallia (BDL Publishing)
Translation for Children ages 8–12
Maskra Ħamra: Sensiela Kif Issir Supereroj 2 (Elias Våhlund; Agnes Våhlund ill.) translated by Antoinette Borg (Merlin Publishers)
Young Adult Literature in Translation
Fake ta’ Veru (Nereida Carrillo; Alberto Montt ill.) translated by David Aloisio (Merlin Publishers)
Best Book Production
Merlin Publishers for the book M għal Malta by Naomi Gatt

Mauna Kea telescope Scientists reflect on lessons learned after dismantling

Science and Health

Scientists are reflecting on lessons learned with the completion of removal this summer of the Caltech telescope from the summit of Mauna Kea after dec­ades of mounting tension with Native Hawaiians.The decommissioning of the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory in July followed the removal of a University of Hawaii observatory a month earlier and came amid a cultural resurgence among Native Hawaiians.
“Nothing is forever,” said Gregory Chun, executive director of the Center for Maunakea Stewardship at the University of Hawaii and a Native Hawaiian.
“It was important for these two facilities to come down, not just because they were not productive anymore, but because it’s an acknowledgment of the privilege of being up there. You were pau — you were done. So, you can go home now.”
Prized for its altitude, dark skies and low humidity, Mauna­ Kea still hosts 11 other telescopes. The facilities have brought Hawaii international acclaim in astronomy and have helped to boost the local economy.
Now the Caltech telescope moves to Chile with a new name (the Leighton Chajnantor Telescope), new instruments and the opportunity to reestablish itself on the cutting edge of astronomy.
Sunil Golwala, director of the observatory and a physics professor at Caltech, said the team has learned from their time on Mauna Kea and that the Chile site is farther from population centers and not regarded as sacred. They’ll also build near other observatories to reduce their environmental footprint.
In the aftermath of the observatory protests, finding the right balance between astronomy and preservation of the Mauna Kea sacred site remains a challenge.
Despite criticisms, the telescopes do help the state economically, and they support science and engineering on the islands as many of Hawaii’s young people are leaving to pursue degrees in these fields.
“You don’t have a unified consensus in the community — much less the Hawaiian community — about (the Thirty Meter Telescope) or astronomy,” Chun said. “So, balance is not going to be something that’s easily found, but I think if the authority can come up with a vision where people see themselves in it, we have a better chance.”
Over his time heading the center, Chun has come to think empathy is the path toward reconciliation, and the authority is an opportunity to find it.
“We certainly have a lot of lessons learned and scars that we’ve accumulated over the years,” Chun said.
“I also think, however, that it’s not by happenstance that one of the most sacred lands here in Hawaii to Native Hawaiians is also the premier place, certainly in the Northern Hemisphere if not in the world, for astronomy.”
Native Hawaiians have long regarded the summit as their spiritual connection to the heavens.
Protests erupted at the base of the mountain in 2019, when Caletch and the University of California proposed construction of another observatory, called the Thirty Meter Telescope. The outcry led the state to shift oversight responsibilities from the University of Hawaii — which leased the land to Caltech — to the new Maunakea Stewardship Oversight Authority, which is composed of local, environmental and scientific stakeholders.
The closure of the Caltech observatory marks the end of a contentious era, as locals and the new authority debate what’s next for the mountain.
“I have incredible respect for the people at the University of Hawaii, who can audit their own actions,” said John De Fries, executive director of the new authority. “If this authority can begin to pioneer a new model of leadership, that’s reason to be grateful, but the task of that remains ahead of us.”
In response to public criticism, the University of Hawaii created the Center for Maunakea Stewardship in 2020 to oversee operations on the mountain. It worked closely with Caltech to decommission the observatory.
Throughout the process, cultural observers were present to ensure deconstruction was done in a respectful way, and while the new authority was not involved in the decommissioning process, Caltech invited members to perform cultural ceremonies at its conclusion.
A senior member from the authority also inspected the site for final sign-off of completion, and reported that “the site had been restored to as near a pristine level that you can expect,” De Fries said.
Over its roughly three dec­ades of observations, the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory had played a key role in several scientific breakthroughs in astrophysics.
The observatory was first designed to detect some of the most unexplored wavelengths of light, between a third of a millimeter and 1 millimeter — much longer than visible light.
The telescope, with its fellow Mauna Kea resident the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, discovered that Earth is basking in light from excited molecules living quietly in interstellar space.
Toward the turn of the century, an upgraded Caltech Submillimeter Observatory started making maps of the sky. It was a “quantum leap in capability,” said Golwala.
This allowed scientists to map everything from dust in the interstellar medium to the largest scale of structure in the universe, galaxy clusters.

The forgotten scientist of History

Science and Health

Marie Benedict, La ragazza  del microscopio[The Girl with the Microscope], Piemme 2024
This novel, which I came across by chance, recounts the story of Rosalind Franklin, a British scientist, chemist, and expert in crystallography. In the 1950s, she was the only one able to capture an X-ray image of the DNA molecule, the famous Photo 51, and became the first person in the world to witness, incredulous, the appearance of a double-helix structure. This discovery would forever change the course of scientific history, which she summarized in several articles published in Nature magazine. However, history consigned her to oblivion, associated with her premature death at just 38 years old due to ovarian cancer, partly caused by overexposure to X-rays. The ones, who became famous for the discovery, even winning the Nobel Prize in 1962, were James Watson and Francis Crick, along with geneticist Maurice Wilkins, who improperly appropriated Franklin’s work without giving her any credit. Only through the careful analysis of Rosalind Franklin’s personal and scientific journey, conducted by her friend and fellow researcher Anne Sayre, have we been able to learn the truth and recognize the rightful value of her immense discovery.
#sistersproject
Rosa Lupoli is a Capuchin nun from Naples and abbess of the monastery of Santa Maria in Gerusalemme, also known as the Monastery of the Thirty-Three, founded by Blessed Maria Lorenza Longo.