ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

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Evelyn Waugh’s Mansion Sells, But Superfans Living There Refuse To Leave

Quote from the people who have lived there for some time: "We are not tenants, we have a major share in the house and have put in hundreds of thousands of pounds of our own money. ... It’s our home and we have no plans to move." - LitHub

Storytelling May Save The Planet, If Anything Can

"The environmental crisis is one of overconsumption, carbon emissions, and corporate greed. But it’s also a crisis of miscommunication." - Wired

What Good Memoirs Can Do For You

We tend to imagine the memoirist as a naive spiller of information about their life, as in religious confession, rather than the intentional constructor of a narrative. - The Atlantic

BookForum Dead? Does This Look Like A Dying Magazine?

Either way, here’s what I know: I’m tired of losing outlets to conglomeration. I’m tired of culture being under siege because of money, of corporations and the wealthy buying platforms and destroying them just because they can. - Los Angeles Times

An Ancient Grammar Mystery Is Solved, Clarifying A 2,500-Year-Old “Language Machine”

In ancient India, the grammarian Pāṇini developed a set of rules that basically constitute an algorithm, allowing any word or phrase to be coined in perfect Sanskrit.  But modern scholars could never figure out Pāṇini's instruction on what to do if rules conflict — until a Ph.D, student's eureka moment. - Vice

English Is A Global Language. New Words Are Coming From Everywhere

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) has documented many of the words that these new communities of English speakers have added to the vocabulary. - The Guardian

The Long HarperCollins Strike Will Have A Real Effect On What Books People Get To Read

"The outcome of the strike, which began Nov. 10, ... may have a ripple effect on jobs across the publishing industry. Its impact may be seen in the quantity and diversity of books that are published for years to come." - MSN (The Washington Post)

France’s Top Book Prize Has A New Offshoot, With The Winner Chosen By Prison Inmates

"Some prisons have organized their own literary prizes, but the inmates' Goncourt" — Goncourt des détenus, as it's called in French — "is unprecedented in size and reach, with about 500 people detained in 31 prisons taking part. It is also prominently backed and promoted by the French government." - The New York Times

Why Should Anyone Write In Cursive Anymore?

I understand that handwriting imprints the memory better — I notice it even in adulthood — but I am skeptical that there is a reason the handwriting is better done in cursive. - The New York Times

The Rise Of Celebrity Book Clubs (Reese Witherspoon Is The New Oprah)

"For all their informal organisation, these virtual reading groups led by a famous figurehead have emerged as a driving force within the publishing industry, and a factor in many of its biggest recent successes." - The Guardian

Yet Again, The Turkic Languages Of Central Asia Are Changing Their Alphabets

"The question of alphabet reform is hardly new for these countries — over the last 150 years, Kazakh has been written in Arabic, Latin, and Cyrillic, each prevailing at different points in the language's history," depending on the imperial ruler. The same is true for Uzbek, Turkmen, and Kyrgyz. - JSTOR Daily

Why The New York Times Best Seller Lists Drive The Publishing Business Insane

Basically, nobody can figure them out: the Times rankings frequently don't match publicly available sales figures, and while the paper says it uses various sources and formulas to keep bulk purchasers from gaming the lists, nobody knows what those are. Speculation that some editorial bias is involved is rife. - Esquire

One Week After Being Sold, Bookforum Is Closing Down

Just days after its parent company, Artforum International, was acquired by Penske Media, the literary journal announced that the current issue is its last. Among the other titles owned by Penske are ARTnews, Art in America, Billboard, Rolling Stone, IndieWIRE, Variety, and The Hollywood Reporter. - TheWrap

The History Of Books In Defining The World

Since all reading at that time occurred out loud rather than inside one’s head, the study rooms were a modern librarian’s nightmare: no one seemed to understand the requirement to shush. Silent reading, when it eventually arrived, seemed highly suspect and slightly sneaky. - The Guardian

Crappy Pay Is Pushing Writers Out Of Publishing

The report shows a drop in the proportion of full-time authors from 40% of those surveyed in 2006 to just 19% today. This shows that we cannot keep relying on the assumption that people will find money from elsewhere to sustain their writing: many are leaving the profession. - The Guardian

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