For one thing, it feels shockingly contemporary - and for another, "From its opening line, The Tale of Genji signals its author’s focus on how women steer the fate of the hero." - The New York Times
Well, not accidentally, but not on purpose. Its list of the 100 Most Influential People is "surprisingly literary! I mean, it’s not that literary, but considering that the TIME editors typically limit themselves to a single novelist among the 100, books seem to be coming up in the world." - LitHub
"Llano County Judge Ron Cunningham announced that the county's library system will stay open. … Commissioners considered whether or not they would shut down their library system rather than complying with a federal judge's order that they must return 17 banned books to the library shelves." - Texas Public Radio
"What started as a favor done on a business-trip whim has since become the great project of Andy Hunter's professional life. In its first few years of existence, Bookshop defied even its founder's expectations and demonstrated how helpful its model could be for small businesses." - Wired
"In the 1960s, much of Old Nubia was destroyed by the construction of the Aswan High Dam. … Between 50,000 and 130,000 people were forced to move from ancient villages, mostly to … areas where Arabic was spoken. 'Nubians started to dissolve', says Mohamed Sobhy, 'like when you put sugar in water.'" - The Guardian
Missouri House Republicans voted to defund all of the state’s public libraries, in a proposed $45.6 billion state budget that will soon move to a vote in the GOP-controlled state Senate. - HeartlandSignal
"After a federal judge ordered the return of more than a dozen books improperly pulled from the Llano County Public Library shelves for their content, the county's commissioners have called a special meeting for April 13 to discuss shutting the library down altogether." - Publishers Weekly
"Within a long sentence — clause upon clause, the commas and semicolons, em-dashes and colons, parentheticals and appositions piling up — there can be a veritable maze of imagery, … simultaneously an archive of consciousness at its most caffeinated and a dream of new worlds from words alone." - Literary Hub
"Anne Frank's Diary: The Graphic Adaptation was removed from a library at Vero Beach High School after a leader of Moms for Liberty in Indian River County raised an objection. … The book at one point shows the protagonist walking in a park, enchanted by female nude statues." - AP
The judge wrote that the IA had simply “copied the Works in Suit wholesale for no transformative purpose and created ebooks that … competed directly with the licensed ebooks.” The ruling went beyond this to say that controlled digital lending, or CDL, violates copyright law. - The Atlantic
Too many of the undergrads taking the course I currently teach cannot read. They’re literate, of course, but unable to sit long enough to read a chapter from Henry David Thoreau’s Walden or an essay about an Australian ecofeminist nearly mauled to death by a crocodile. - AlJazeera
