BookTok is real. A co-owner of The Ripped Bodice in Los Angeles says, "'We'll get a rush of customers asking for something random and we're like, 'Why does everyone want this specific book?'' ... The answer is always TikTok." - NPR
"I went to an Erewhon supermarket in a hazmat suit. I chopped vegetables and did nothing with them. I put on makeup and rolled FaceTime calls. A director told me there was no longer a place for people like me in the movies." - The New York Times
"When I was first talking to my editors about my idea, they listened carefully and literally said: 'I dunno, it sounds kinda out there… you don’t write science fiction.'" - The Guardian (UK)
Many librarians, rightly so, are incredibly fearful for their personal safety, for their family’s safety, for their job security. They don’t feel at liberty to speak out. - Christian Science Monitor
Literature’s history is a history of mistakes, errors, misapprehensions, simple typos. It’s the shadow narrative of expression—how we fail because of sloppiness, or ignorance, or simple tiredness. Blessed are the copyeditors, for theirs is a war of eternal attrition. - The Millions
Dick Tofel: "First, let me be clear: I am not advocating eliminating the best longform stories that continue to distinguish many of these magazines. ... I am proposing saving on the very considerable expense of separately printing (often on higher quality paper), binding and inserting Sunday magazines." - Second Rough Draft
Adrian Chiles: "Whenever I read back anything I have written, I think how I could have written it better. ... Having to read your words out loud takes this to a new level, subjecting your prose to the sternest, most unforgiving test." - The Guardian
"In recent years, amid unrelenting demand for safety-net services, libraries ... offer help accessing housing, food stamps, medical care, and sometimes even showers or haircuts. Librarians, in turn, have been called on to play the role of welfare workers, first responders, therapists, and security guards." - California Healthline
Despite my many frustrations with traditional publishing, I’ve chosen to believe in it because I think it gets a few things right. For one, it doesn’t charge artists, starving or not, to have their books published. - LitHub
Certain corners of Twitter need to be reminded of this: a bitter argument broke out last week between those who find him an insufferable incel and those who insist he's an abused and bereaved teenager who deserves compassion (and those who disagree are heartless). Folks, remember: Holden is fictional. - Vulture
"The (Gospel) manuscript is to be repatriated next month to the Kosinitza Monastery in northern Greece, where it had been used in liturgical services for hundreds of years before it was stolen by Bulgarian forces in 1917." - The New York Times
Says Dr. Zahi Hawass of the 2,200-year-old stele, which provided the key to deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics, "The Rosetta Stone is the icon of Egyptian identity. The British Museum has no right to show this artefact to the public." - The National (Abu Dhabi)
The white liberal reading style “has dictated that we go to writers of color for the gooey heart-porn of the ethnographic: to learn about forgotten history, harrowing tragedy, community-destroying political upheaval, genocide, trauma.” Such was the problem with the way I saw these Black writers taken up on Bookstagram. - LA Review of Books
Forty-two books in total—including the Bible, a graphic novel adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, and Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe—were taken from school shelves despite some of them previously being approved by officials to stay in circulation. - The Daily Beast
