"Alan Garner (at 87) has become the oldest author to be shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and is the only British writer on this year's list. He is joined ... by one Irish writer, two Americans, a Zimbabwean and a writer from Sri Lanka." - The Guardian
"According to a report by the National Literacy Trust, the percentage of children (aged five through eight) who do not have a book of their own at home has risen by 1.9% since before the pandemic and is now at its highest point since 2019." - The Guardian
Traditional-values groups are demanding the removal or restriction of books with explicit sex education, and books that unflinchingly document LGBTQ realities and the Black American experience. Challenges of library books have jumped fourfold, from 416 books in 2017 to 1,597 book challenges in 2021. - NPR
We go straight to “amazing”. Or “awesome”. In both cases, as usual, I think we’re on safe ground blaming the Americans. They too, surely, are behind “thank you so much”. It’s now used so often that the “so much” adds nothing; it’s just a standard thank you. - The Guardian
"People in bayou country have long learned to live under adverse weather conditions. But things have gotten much worse in recent years. Rising sea levels, erosion and storm after storm have flooded entire communities. For some French speakers, Hurricane Ida was the last straw, and now many are moving away." - PRX's The World
The Encyclopedia of Shakespeare’s Language project at Lancaster University, deploying large-scale computer analyses, has been transforming what we know about Shakespeare’s language. - The Conversation
The paper's Book World was closed in 2009 and reviews in the hard-copy edition were moved to the Style and Outlook sections. (Online, there was little visible difference.) Book World will return to print — for DC-area readers, at least — on September 25. - Literary Hub
"'I agree with the defense that the statute is facially invalid,' said retired judge Pamela S. Baskervill (about the) Virginia law that a Republican legislator used in his attempt to declare Maia Kobabe's graphic memoir Gender Queer and Sarah Maas's fantasy romance A Court of Mist and Fury 'obscene for minors.'" - Slate
How does a debut novel go from a “very messy” draft on a writer’s desk to a published book, on display in bookstores around the country? - The New York Times
My mind wanders back to a final stroll I took through my parents’ library just before the home was sold—acres of empty shelves, a breath-catching sight. A quiet library is quieter when the books are gone. But those books are noisy somewhere, on new shelves, in new hands. - The Wall Street Journal
Before there was an official policy, officials in individual districts could decide how to act on (or ignore) complaints about particular titles. Now districts must not only act on complaints, they must explain to legislators any decision to keep a book someone has complained about. - Axios
Americans on both sides of the political aisle were opposed to banning books, although it also found stark differences when it came to how issues of race should be taught in the classroom, and it’s this divide that has muddied the banned-book debate currently raging in schools. - FiveThirtyEight
"The book list includes novels that have been taught for generations, including To Kill a Mockingbird, Catcher in the Rye and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. It also includes the Harry Potter series and the biblical Song of Solomon. ... But the list is a fiction." - USA Today
“We” didn’t cause climate disruption; ExxonMobil did. In these types of, albeit nonfictional, narratives, the push is precisely to rescue the “figure-ground” narrative form from the historically false way of telling the story as if vast numbers of undifferentiated humans played equal roles in the drama. - The Nation
