The prize honors a book-length work of imaginative fiction with $25,000. The nine shortlisted books will be considered by a panel of five jurors. The winner will be announced later this year on October 21st, 2022, Ursula K. Le Guin’s birthday. - Electric Literature
Linear Elamite is a set of characters that was used in and around the ancient city of Susa (in modern-day Iran) around 4,000 years ago, and it's one of only a few surviving ancient writing systems that scholars still can't decipher at all — until now. (Maybe.) - Smithsonian Magazine
Now, as a life-long pseud, I learned years ago how to float in an implied familiarity with an author or their work, without telling an outright lie. I have a shell like a Galapagos Tortoise when challenged on this sort of thing. But I have noticed that such libertine manners are fast becoming normalised. - The Critic
Could it be that the stories of the average middle-class white man — the ones we grew up on — were once a novelty? In one sense, yes: there are novels that were as groundbreaking and shocking then as they are considered passé today. - The Critic
"I don’t begin with the idea of plundering the word for meanings; it’s rather a discovery, a saving grace, something that clinches or copes. (I’m inclined to look up ‘copes’ here…It came to mind just now, no doubt via the alliteration, but I’m curious about the lexical meaning. I’ve a hunch it’s worth looking up." - The Life of...
Last month, the “leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world” released, in collaboration with Marvel, three volumes from what's being called the “Penguin Classics Marvel Collection,” featuring a hefty series of stories from the early days in the life of three Marvel superheroes. - The Atlantic
The Biden administration sued to block the $2.18 billion sale as part of its new and more aggressive stance against corporate consolidation. The trial will start on Monday. Such a shift could ripple through the industry, potentially impacting smaller publishers, authors, and ultimately, the books that reach readers. - The New York Times
What many readers encounter are cautious judgments affixed to a skeletal summary, leaving little opening for the decisive and expansive claims on a reader’s attention that make a piece of criticism valuable on its own, or even simply viral. - The Nation
We can shrug and chalk up English’s many quirks to tradition. Or we can try to think beyond our own time, as President Theodore Roosevelt tried to when he sent a letter in 1906 to the public printer, Charles Stillings, directing him to use in various official communications the simplified spellings. - The New York Times
Grammatically, Esperanto was primarily influenced by European languages, but interestingly, some of Esperanto’s innovations bear a striking resemblance to features found in some Asian languages, such as Chinese. - The Conversation
Our best writers can unfreeze us. They override the notion that we’re helpless, and sometimes they do it paradoxically, by depicting people who are paralyzed and stuck. - Tablet
The closely watched case holds major implications for a publishing industry that has been grappling with consolidation for years. It also looms as a key test for the government amid growing calls for more vigilant antitrust enforcement. - Publishers Weekly
"In Maskwacîs — an area with four First Nations reserves on the Alberta prairie between Edmonton and Calgary — Cree, the most widely spoken Indigenous language in Canada, can be found written on stop signs, municipal buildings and emergency vehicles. A local radio station has Cree-speaking DJs." - MSN (The Washington Post)
It's not only a matter of adjusting signs so that they can be seen on a video chat screen. Think of telephones 100 years ago, 50 years go, and now: the sign for the word "telephone" has changed right along with the object. - The New York Times
The magazine's archive editor, Erin Overbey, was fired last Friday for (per the termination letter) "a pattern of conduct that is disruptive to the operation of the company and undermines the journalistic ethics of our magazine." Here's how things got to this point. - The Daily Beast
