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
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
