ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

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Revisiting The World’s First Advice Column, Which Debuted In 1691

London printer John Dunton created the Athenian Gazette, or Casuistical Mercury as a broadsheet answering questions and providing topics for patrons to discuss at coffeehouses. The questions submitted were initially about science, law, or philosophy, but it took only a few weeks for readers to start asking about personal relationships. - Literary Hub

Seeing Both Necessity And Demand, Random House Is Publishing The U.S. Constitution

“Random House announced that it would publish a hardcover book in July combining the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, followed in November by a hardcover edition of the Federalist Papers. Both books include introductions by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Jon Meacham.” - AP

There’s A Growing “Reading Crisis” In Britain: Study

“According to the report, nearly half (46%) of U.K. adults say they struggle to focus on reading due to distractions around them. That figure rises to 55% among respondents ages 16-24 and 35-44, and to 52% for respondents ages 25-34. One in three adults revealed that they multitask while reading.” - Publishers Weekly

The New Yorker: A Magazine Of Words Defined By Iconic Wordless Covers

Beyond the masthead and issue date, no set typography has ever been allowed, maintaining a unique wordless space in magazine publishing where only an image connotes the idea. The absence of copy is arresting, the silent core of what the solely visual can communicate. - The Conversation

Is There A Future For Scots Gaelic?

“What was until the 14th century the primary language of Scotland was, in the 2022 census, spoken by 2.5% of the population (up from 1.7% in 2011). Ever-greater numbers of people are learning the language in school or through apps …, but the shift to English is at an advanced stage.” - History Today

What Does It Mean To Win A Book Award For Translation?

While the International Booker might have heralded a rise in the status of literary translators, is there a commensurate deepening of appreciation for, and understanding of, translation itself? While translators are being made more visible, is translation being made more invisible? - Sydney Review of Books

A Mathematical Model To Better Understand Language?

By thinking of language as a mathematical category, Tai-Danae Bradley's been able to apply established tools to study it and glean new insights. Linguists hope her model can help them to prove certain theories about how grammar and meaning emerge from strings of words, and to identify how AI-generated text differs from human language. - Quanta

Study Literature? What It Means

As the English degree craters, and the idea of the university itself is under assault in the United States and elsewhere, those of us who remain interested in literate culture are sensing in its decline some correlation with the current apoplexy, if not direct causation. - 3 Quarks Daily

Books Have “No Economic Value” Claims Meta

Meta cited an expert witness who downplayed the books' individual importance, averring that a single book adjusted its LLM's performance "by less than 0.06 percent on industry standard benchmarks, a meaningless change no different from noise." Thus there's no market in paying authors to use their copyrighted works, Meta says. - Futurism

British Authors Protest Zuckerberg’s Taking Of Their Books For Generative AI

"Earlier this month, a group of protesters gathered outside the London headquarters of Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. They were demonstrating over the company’s use of millions of pirated books and research papers to feed their family of generative AI models.” - The Guardian (UK)

The Naval Academy Was Supposed To Host A Lecture On Idea Censorship And Reading Fearlessly

Then the Academy, apparently not fearless, censored the lecture. "I did not want to cause them trouble. I did, however, feel it was essential to make the point that the pursuit of wisdom is impossible without engaging with (and challenging) uncomfortable ideas.” - The New York Times

Buying A Book, Novelist Kiley Reid Says, Isn’t Going To Fix Racism

“Theme always comes last. I never say, I want to write about capitalism or women. What gets me into writing is always this tiny moment of someone saying something that’s stuck with me.” - The Guardian (UK)

Once You’ve Begun Writing, When Do You Stop?

Poet and memoirist Maggie Smith says, “You have to enjoy the process more than you enjoy patting yourself on the back about having a product that you created. I mean, the most fun is the making of the thing.” - Slate

The Life Of An Author Can Be, Well, Imaginative

Author Sayaka Murata: “Ever since I was a child, I’ve had 30 or 40 imaginary friends who live on a different star or planet with whom I have shared love and sexual experiences.” - The Guardian (UK)

300 Customers Form Human Chain To Move Beloved Book Store

After announcing she was moving her independent bookstore about a block away to a new location, her regular customers all had the same question: “How can I help?” - Washington Post

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