"BookTok is passionate. It is also profitable—at least for publishers. Bloomsbury, a publishing house based in Britain, recently reported record sales and a 220% rise in profits, which Nigel Newton, its boss, put down partly to the 'absolute phenomenon' of BookTok." - The Economist
Sound familiar? "Collective narcissists tend to respond to the perceived threats of other groups in outsize, often aggressive ways. ... Meanwhile, group narcissists glorify positively valued in-group members and tend to overlook their moral transgressions." - The Atlantic
The chair for the Canada Council for the Arts says, "What you’re seeing is maybe an industry that is so ravenous for stories that it’s realized it has to open the gates beyond its usual suspects." - The New York Times
How do you go from being mocked for playing the love interest of a vampire to being the first American actress to win a César, not to mention getting into the Oscars discussion this year? "She is a master of misdirection, deflection, and pregnant glances." - Slate
For one thing, give the conductor a look. For another thing, hope the concertmaster is alert. Watch Thursday's cascading violin exchanges and fixes on video from Seattle's Benaroya Hall. - Seattle Times
One singer: "We have the power to uplift someone. ... It’s something I hope fellow musicians realize, appreciate and that they don’t forget, even if we’re in a very challenging time. The worst thing that can happen is for you to stop." - Los Angeles Times
But that's not the point: "Pushing media companies to live up to their ideals about inclusion and equality is a long game, requiring sustained pressure and constant scrutiny — a much different notion than so-called 'cancel culture.'"- NPR
Playwright Al Smith says he didn't mean one of his characters - a zillionaire Silicon Valley bro meant to represent Elon Musk - named "Hershel Fink" to read as Jewish, but after protests, Britain's Royal Court theatre has changed the name. - The Observer (UK)
And not just her love for opera, but her love for operatic style. "She did so much for our art form by speaking about it publicly and encouraging people to attend — we should all be incredibly grateful." - The New York Times
Daniel Heath Justice's "podcast, which will be peer-reviewed before its release—a first in North America—is part of a bold new take on research that treats new media as scholarship, defying the traditionally rigid informational hierarchies in academia." - MacLean's (Canada)
"The lives of buchonas, their flamboyant styles and their taste for plastic surgery are regularly chronicled in Spanish-language media outlets. Vloggers do roundups devoted to top buchonas. And internationally, people have adopted the style." Then there's the music. - Los Angeles Times
The authors nominated for the Giller who have kids say they write whenever they can. Another: "COVID has helped me let go of a pernicious late capitalist drive which cast reading as unproductive leisure time, as opposed to an integral part of the writing process." - CBC
Sounds like a horror novel, but this was real. "The man got into a crawl space in the building. ... He was in the hiding spot for two days before he fell into a space in the wall of the men’s bathroom and became trapped." - Syracuse Post-Standard
