"The news of the layoffs comes a few days after HC said it had agreed to work with a mediator in an attempt to end the ongoing strike by some 240 union members." - Publishers Weekly
The chain, long in contraction, is expanding for the first time in a decade. It plans to open 30 new stores this year. It is increasingly seen as an ally, rather than the enemy, of indie booksellers. - The New York Times
But when the author of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up revealed that with kids, she's let go of trying to be so tidy, the internet freaked out. - NPR
She's on TikTok, of course - or at least, her new fans are, and they're heading to Bath in droves. One academic even suggests that "Austen is the most memed writer after Shakespeare." - The Observer (UK)
The personal literary archives of Didion and her husband, writer John Gregory Dunne, contain 240 linear feet of material - including her research for The White Album and Slouching Towards Bethlehem, drafts of screenplays, and even her footprint as a newborn. - The New York Times
Oliver James, a 34-year-old TikTok star, was functionally illiterate - until he joined forces with TikTok's book-loving community, BookTok. Now he's got a plan to read 100 books in 2023. - NPR
Garbriela Mistral, the first Latin American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, "is being reclaimed by a new generation of feminist and L.G.B.T. activists as an anti-establishment icon — and igniting a debate about how we appropriate literary figures from the past." - The New York Times
It’s clear that copyediting as it’s typically practiced is a white supremacist project, that is, not only for the particular linguistic forms it favors and upholds, which belong to the cultures of whiteness and power, but for how it excludes or erases the voices and styles of those who don’t or won’t perform this culture. - LitHub
In-person author appearances are back in local bookstores, after a long pandemic absence. And for every standing-room-only reading featuring a massively well-known name, there might be a quiet event, with empty chairs outnumbering occupied ones. - Seattle Times
Do they merely memorize training data and reread it out loud, or are they picking up the rules of English grammar and the syntax of C language? Are they building something like an internal world model—an understandable model of the process producing the sequences? - The Gradient
"The Manatee County School District directed teachers to remove all books that had not yet been approved by a specialist from their classroom libraries. ... Many teachers have chosen to close access altogether, since making unvetted books available could lead to felony prosecution." - Sarasota Herald-Tribune
"Cat Serna-Horn says council members offered her 'political favors' to quietly resign from the board ... was told the board's compromise to keep LGBTQ sections in the library forced her removal." - KERA (Dallas)
"Undine Spragg of The Custom of the Country ... can be conceived of as (a) social media influencer conscious of her brand. For Undine and her creator know that 'the future belonged to the showy and the promiscuous' and that the turn-of-the-century 'world where conspicuousness passed for distinction' foreshadows our own." - Literary Hub
Despite his ongoing recovery from last August's stabbing, which cost him an eye, he's lively and quick-witted, friends say, and is planning future projects. But he probably won't be making public appearances to promote his latest book, a historical fantasy about a mythical poetess titled Victory City. - The New York Times
