As reading is increasingly tracked and performed online, there is a growing sense that a solitary pleasure is being reshaped by the logic of metrics and visibility. - The Guardian
The advent of the chatbot raised an unsettling question: What if writing didn’t have to be hard? What if that noble ordeal was no more necessary than going to a well to fetch your water when you could just turn on a tap? - The Atlantic
“The strictly disenchanted world, where nothing exists but physical processes describable without metaphor, and even consciousness is just a material problem waiting to be solved, can be a desiccated place. It keeps heart and mind on inadequate rations.” - The Guardian (UK)
“Fiction has no obligation to dispel ambiguity. It can make use of it—even intensify it—in order to evoke and transform experience. In Beloved, Morrison does take possession of the master’s tools, but she bends them, breaks them, and then uses them to reshape the house.” - LitHub
With the Taliban having outlawed the education of girls and severely restricted women’s other rights, a clandestine group of women gather weekly to read books ranging from Orwell and Hemingway to contemporary Iranian fiction. - The Guardian
Chicago’s Newberry Library has received $4 million from the Mellon Foundation that will help widen access to Indigenous languages, some of which have been on the brink of disappearance. - WBEZ
Bindery Books, a startup founded by publishing veterans, uses social media book influencers as acquiring editors to champion underrepresented authors and build engaged reader communities. - Los Angeles Times
“So many children are now falling behind,” Dent said. “The vocabulary gap is getting bigger and there is a real perception that vocabulary development is suffering and that impacts on learning.” - The Guardian
“To begin with, a Book of the Dead is a misnomer, applied by 19th-century Western scholars. A more accurate translation of the title would be ‘Spells of Coming Forth by Day.’ Unlike obituaries, they aren’t biographies. They aren’t even books. And, they’re not of the dead. They’re for the dead.” - The New York Times
The Irish Times (like most outlets) always depended on advertising to fund its operations. This year, thanks to the strategy followed by its leaders (and the fact that it’s owned by a trust rather than an asset management firm), the paper’s 150,000 print and digital subscribers cover the newsroom’s expenses. - Press Gazette (UK)
Recent USPS service problems aren’t exclusive to newspapers. But for a business where timeliness is baked into the value proposition, they can be uniquely damaging, leading subscribers to cancel and even, in some cases, threatening advertising revenue. - NiemanLab
Here’s the problem: Those Big Five control over 80% of the trade publishing market. Indie publishers exist, but they need more support—a lot more support—than they’re getting. - The Honest Broker
Kamel Daoud's Goncourt-winning novel Houris is about a woman whose throat was slit at age 5 during a terrorist massacre and who can now barely speak. An Algerian woman — whose psychiatrist was Daoud’s wife — has brought legal cases accusing the author of using her life story for the book without permission. - The Guardian
When in 2010, Durham University got back the Folio which had been stolen in 1998, the book’s leather cover, boards and end papers were gone, as were an engraving, a eulogy by Ben Jonson, and the final page of Cymbeline. The volume has never been repaired, and there are good reasons why. - BBC (Yahoo!)
What seemed preposterous in a 1962 novel—story-writing machines—is now Silicon Valley gospel. As AI churns out narratives, we're left wondering: who's really telling the story, and does anyone care about the difference? — 3 Quarks Daily
