By Monday afternoon, the letter had attracted more than 625 signatures from authors, translators and agents. The signatories included more than 75 who identified themselves as Penguin Random House employees. - The Wall Street Journal
"'The court finds that the United States has shown that the effect of the proposed merger may be substantially to lessen competition in the market for the US publishing rights to anticipated top-selling books,' Judge (Florence) Pan said in her two-page order." - The Wall Street Journal
How did an Italian press for $150, buy the rights to a book about the slaughter of 150 Africans, usurp its form, and deny the poet any ownership over the result? - The Walrus
Some presses are exploring printing on cheaper and thinner paper, postponing reprints for older books and publishing fewer titles to reduce costs and avoid increasing recommended retail prices. - The Guardian
Peter Brooks warns that our “mindless valorization of storytelling” makes us more susceptible to those with more malevolent intentions — “inertly accepting the notion that all is story, and that the best story wins.” - The New York Times
Some cite studies that have shown people who listen to books retain less than those who read them, which is bound up with how tempting it is to do other things while listening. - Wired
The mailroom was out of control. Employees helped themselves to books, telephone calls to Hong Kong, extra sandwiches during press week. They had a softball team. My duties included babysitting for the publisher’s assistant’s children. - LitHub
"His novels alternate restlessly from an East Africa of the past to the Britain of the present, as if they comprise two parts of a puzzle — parts that do not quite fit — that it will take a lifetime of writing to solve." - The New Republic
"The Orwell Foundation is set to launch Orwell Daily ... with the writer's memoir Down and Out in Paris and London. ... Subscribers to the newsletter will receive around 1,000 to 1,500 words of the book each day. The extracts are led by the original chapters." - The Guardian
Utah parents have filed hundreds of requests to remove specific titles from K-12 libraries since a new law took effect in May banning “pornographic or indecent” books in schools. - Salt Lake Tribune
"Anna Pasternak claimed seven chapters in Lara Prescott's (novel), The Secrets We Kept, copied elements from her own book Lara, a 2016 biography of her great uncle's lover Olga Ivinskaya," the inspiration for Lara in Doctor Zhivago. (Anna Pasternak did not read Prescott's book before bringing the suit.) - The Guardian
Enheduanna, the daughter of King Sargon, founder of the Akkadian Empire, played perhaps the leading role in consolidating the religion of conquered Sumer with that of Akkad; her surviving work includes 42 hymns to the goddess Ishtar/Inanna and three freestanding poems. - BBC
‘Kiow’ and ‘Kiou’ seemed to be the most common terms in the 18th century, while ‘Kief’ was the most popular word at the turn of the 19th century, was still common towards the end of the century, and at the turn of the 20th was in competition, so to speak, with ‘Kieff’ and ‘Kiev’. - 3 Quarks Daily
This word substitution – and thousands like it – suggests that our mental dictionaries link words with related meanings. In other words, semantic connections can influence speech errors. - The Conversation
"In honor of the 100th anniversary of the publication of 'The Waste Land,' we invited four writers and academics — Beci Carver, Jahan Ramazani, Robert Crawford, and David Barnes — to discuss the importance, context, artistry, and legacy of the poem." - Literary Hub
