ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

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In War, Poetry Has Become Very Popular In Ukraine

Over the past two years, poets have emerged as some of the nation’s most popular voices, their verse capturing the raw emotions of the conflict and resonating deeply with a war-weary population. Sales of poetry books have soared. - The New York Times

Books Are Ideas, Yes. But I Need To Hold Them

"I will always prefer a book I can hold in my hand, the kind that smells of paper and glue, the kind whose unfolding I control, no button or touchscreen involved, by flipping backward and forward with pages ruffling between my fingers. The physicality of it pleases me." - The New York Times

Rapping About Adverbs Made This Teacher Go Viral

“Under the name of his alter ego, MC Grammar, Mitchell has become a wildly popular performer whose rhymes have made reading and grammar all the rage among young people across Britain.” - The New York Times

Alert, That Victorian-Era Book You’re Holding May Be Poisoning You

Wait, don’t lick that bright green cover - which probably contains arsenic. “Since the project launched five years ago, Tedone's team has cataloged more than 300 books containing the pigment, a figure that's likely just a drop in the ink pot.” - NPR

What The Right-Wing Does To Librarians, And How They’re Prepared To Respond

“Amanda Jones is a Louisiana middle-school librarian who sleeps with a shotgun under her bed and carries a pistol when she travels the back roads” thanks to right-wing attacks on books - and now her. - Los Angeles Times (MSN)

A Librarian Targeted By Hate After She Defended Access To Books

She was labeled a “sicko, pig, trash,” she writes in the memoir. "The sense of betrayal was overwhelming." One message was particularly alarming: “Continue with your LGBT agenda on our children cause we gunna put in the dirt very soon ... You can’t hide." - Los Angeles Times (MSN)

Why “Weird” Works As A Critique

In the 20th century, the word lost its hint of the macabre as its meaning became something quieter. “Weird” now means peculiar — perhaps passingly so, but against what one would expect. - The New York Times

Most Americans Are Opposed To Book-Banning In Schools But Don’t Feel Overly Engaged: Survey

"Just 3% of respondents have personally engaged on the issue — with 2% getting involved on the side of maintaining access and 1% seeking to restrict access. Overall, a solid majority of respondents expressed support for freedom to read and high levels of trust in their local teachers and school librarians." - Publishers Weekly

What Determines Whether A Book Is Remembered?

Even limiting ourselves to literature, it’s simply the case that what endures has minimal correlation to either contemporaneous popularity or contemporaneous acclaim.  - Countercraft

American Booksellers Association Publishes Handbook For Fighting Book Bans

The ABA Right to Read Handbook: Fighting Book Bans and Why It Matters … features more than a dozen interviews and profiles, and includes a brief history of book censorship, 'a deep dive into the current book ban crisis,' and 'how-to' guides for organizing at the community level." - Publishers Weekly

When Is It Okay To Quit Reading A Book?

The debate is much older than the internet, but in online reading communities such as Goodreads, or on the literary sides of Instagram or TikTok, the acronym “DNF,” for “Did Not Finish,” abounds—as do arguments about when doing so is appropriate. - The Atlantic

Authors Sue Anthropic AI Over Copyright

“Anthropic has enjoyed enormous financial gain from its exploitation of copyrighted material,” the complaint states, noting that Anthropic projects it will generate more than $850 million of revenue in 2024. “Anthropic’s commercial gain has come at the expense of creators and rightsholders.” - Publishers Weekly

The Black Women That Big Publishers Hired As Senior Executives In 2020 Are Now Mostly Gone

"In response (to the Black Lives Matter demonstrations), major publishers recruited and promoted Black editors and launched new imprints devoted to books by nonwhite authors. Publishing companies said they would diversify their work force. … Four years later, there is a growing sense that the momentum has stalled." - The New York Times

Condé Nast Joins The Flock Of Publishers Signing Contracts With OpenAI

"(The agreement is) to license content from brands including The New Yorker, Condé Nast Traveler, GQ, Vanity Fair, Wired and Vogue for use within the AI company’s products, including ChatGPT and the SearchGPT prototype." - Variety

A George Orwell Archive Is Being Sold Off Bit By Bit

"The extensive archive of correspondence and contracts amassed by Orwell’s original publisher, Victor Gollancz, … is being offered for sale on the open market, following a decision in 2018 by the publisher’s parent company to sell the archive because the warehouse was closing." - The Observer (UK)

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