For mid-19th-century Britons, proving that this elusive script could be understood meant pulling back the curtain on a distant, vanished, yet hauntingly familiar world, one that had given birth to humanity’s modern mind. - The Smithsonian
The sense that Shakespeare spoke the language of the oppressors, yet also a language that helped think beyond that oppression, was not unique to Baldwin. It is revealed in the way so many writers and directors from the global south have constantly reworked the 16th-century playwright to illuminate contemporary struggles and tensions. - The Guardian
"I've been here a while, and I've seen books come back that were due in the '80s and the '90s and even the '70s, but this is the first time I've come across a book that was almost a century overdue." - WVXU
What texts are these? Books of Ukrainian history, literature, culture, and just about anything in the Ukrainian language that Ukrainian students would study — if the Russian occupiers weren’t trying to erase Ukrainian identity. - The Guardian
Mass resignations of journal editors are becoming more frequent. They highlight the tension between running a for-profit publishing business and upholding research integrity. - The Conversation
Internal communications show employees saying that Meta did indeed torrent LibGen, which means that Meta could have not only accessed pirated material but also distributed it to others—well established as illegal under copyright law, regardless of what the courts determine about the use of copyrighted material to train generative AI. - The Atlantic
More than 2.6 million books were self-published in 2023 – many of which are uploaded to the dominant platform, Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing – and they can’t all be masterpieces. Nevertheless, the idea that self-publishing is the preserve of hopeless hobbyists producing books no one wants to read is at least a decade out of date. - The Guardian
The chair of the Alabama Republican Party said board members believe the Fairhope library is in violation of state policies to protect children from inappropriate materials. The books cited by the upset parents included “Sold,” a National Book Award finalist about a girl who is sold into sexual slavery in India. - CNN
“Books matter,” said Thibaut Willems, owner of Le Pied à Terre independent bookshop in Paris’s 18th arrondissement and one of the booksellers taking a stand by limiting their orders of Hachette Livre books and placing them on lower shelves. - The Guardian
Coming at a time of heightened tensions between the two countries, the decision is prompting an outpouring of emotion in communities on both sides of the border, which in places has been marked simply by flower pots. - AP News
“Who are we if not citizens of the Capitol, tuning in to the show, priming ourselves for the emotional punch of the next death, feeling moved to send sponsor gifts to children who are stuck in caves and trees, awaiting the moments of their demise?” - Slate
Writing about your life? “To farm it out to a machine that trawls the internet and cobbles together a fake version of you is not just academic dishonesty, it’s a broader degradation of our memories and our humanity.” - The New York Times
