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A Revival Of Morse Code Is Putting The Digit Back In Digital Communication

"Strangely enough, while the number of ham operators is declining globally, it's growing in the United States, as is Morse code, by all accounts. … Equipment sellers have noticed this trend, too." - Smithsonian Magazine

How A 38-Year-Old Don DeLillo Novel Nails The 2020s

"While White Noise is intentionally specific to 1985, the tendencies described have only intensified. … The same tensions DeLillo mined so eloquently still grip us. How to be human amid the ubiquity and velocity of data, the endless streams of non-sequiturs, the static of modern life." - The New York Times Book Review

Apple Introduces Audiobooks Voiced By AI

On the company’s Books app, searching for “AI narration” reveals the catalogue of works included in the scheme, which are described as being “narrated by digital voice based on a human narrator”. - The Guardian

50 Years Of Ms. Magazine, Remembered Year By Year

"Ms. Magazine was a brazen act of independence when it launched 50 years ago. First introduced to the world as an insert in New York Magazine, Ms. demonstrated the potential for journalism that centered news and analysis around women and their lives and made a feminist worldview more accessible to the public." - New York Magazine

The Icelandic Language Is Full Of Scots And Irish Gaelic, Argues Researcher

"A book by Thorvaldur Fridriksson, an Icelandic archaeologist and journalist, argues that Gaelic-speaking Celtic settlers from Ireland and western Scotland had a profound impact on the Icelandic language, landscape and early literature." And also, as it turns out, the Icelanders' DNA. - The Guardian

The Swinging Sixties London Writer Who Tried To Eliminate Every Trace Of Her Career

Rosemary Tonks was suceessful critically, commercially, and socially. Then a series of life crises in the 1970s led her to convert to fundamentalist Christianity, destroy her manuscripts, forbid further publication of her work, and even check out her books from libraries and burn them in her backyard. - The New Yorker

Poetry Is Dead Now. We Can Place The Time Of Death

Modest as the festivities have been, I am certain that in 100 years there will be no poem whose centenary is the object of comparable celebration. This seems to me true for the simple reason that poetry is dead. Indeed, it is dead in part because Eliot helped to kill it. - The New York Times

The Mysterious Manuscript Thief Is Expected To Plead Guilty

"For years, someone impersonated authors and agents, editors and publishers, trying to steal unpublished book manuscripts from high profile authors … and writers of more obscure works. … On Friday, Filippo Bernardini is expected to plead guilty to wire fraud in front of a magistrate court judge in Manhattan." - The New York Times

Is Bulgakov About To Become Another Casualty Of Russia’s Invasion Of Ukraine?

Many writers and other figures are calling for Bulgakov's home in Kiev, a museum since Soviet days, to be closed, arguing that he was very much against Ukrainian independence and insulted Ukrainians in his novel The White Guard. Ukraine's culture minister is resisting the demands. - The Observer (UK)

BookTok’s Little Tropes Problem

Or rather, it's also publishing's tropes problem - a short-hand way of analyzing some plots, especially in romance fiction, that can lead to, shall we say, less than thoughtful book comparisons and recommendations. - Slate

Librarians Know Where Their Younger Patrons Like To Live

And that means gearing some content toward TikTok. - The New York Times

Inside The Long-running HarperCollins Publishing Strike

"For almost a year now, it’s been clear that the HarperCollins People Team and the lawyers from our parent company, News Corp, hope that our bargaining committee can be scolded into thinking we are asking for too much—that we can be discouraged into bargaining against ourselves." - N+1

When Mail Mattered

Mail mattered then, as it had from the beginnings of the republic through the 1970s, more or less, when the falling price of long-distance phone calls and the fax machine devastated written correspondence. - New Criterion

A Recap Of The Prize-Winning Novels Of 2022

"Awards ceremonies are back, baby. For the first time since 2019, your favorite writers got to dress up and attend a fancy party or two this year. From the Pulitzer to the Booker, the Nebula to the Edgar, here are the winners of the biggest book prizes of 2022." - Literary Hub

We Read Them Of Course. But What Actually Makes A Book?

The word “information” predates Gutenberg. But once printing took off and books proliferated, new kinds of books had to be invented to track, organize and summarize the relentless flood of data they generated: encyclopedias, bibliographies, dictionaries, multilingual bibles, summaries, herbals. - The Wall Street Journal

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