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
Ali Hazelwood wrote one of last year's bestselling books, a romance called The Love Hypothesis, but the scientist author won't give away her real name. "Pen names are common in the romance genre, which has historically been stigmatized and minimized." - Washington Post
"Ernest Hemingway and F Scott Fitzgerald, Saul Bellow and Ken Kesey – their women were inexplicable. They were often childish, petty and shallow, yet desirable. My bewilderment just seemed to be something I had to put up with until Lessing showed me I didn’t." - The Guardian (UK)
No hero's journey narrative could possibly fit the times. "Writers choose to believe in the power of stories because it gives us hope. ... The problem is that some of the most urgent and lethal challenges our society is facing are too giant and unwieldy to fit." - The Guardian (UK)
Maggie O'Farrell, author of Hamnet, knows - as did one of her COVID companions, Virginia Woolf. "Perhaps we all develop methods to survive the knocks of significant illnesses, ways to pick ourselves up and face the next day and the next." - The Guardian (UK)
Just in case you weren't riveted on Twitter, "the three-week trial offered an unusual glimpse into the world of publishing, offering observers a parade of high-profile publishing executives, agents and authors speaking frankly and on the record." - The New York Times
