Will we be all right? People ask science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson versions of this question all of the time. Robinson thinks we might be, with a lot of work. - The New Yorker
Less than a year after the Israeli airstrikes that destroyed his beloved two-story bookshop, owner Samir Mansour "is now preparing to reopen as both a bookshop and library, in a new location" - with some of the 150,000 books donated from around the world - The Guardian (UK)
"One of the problems that minority writers face is: How many writers are there? If it’s just you, you’ve got to be pretty careful. As times change, and there are more voices, you can relax a little. But there is still a little voice in the back of my head." - The New York Times
Well, it's not Yeats, after "a somewhat cack-handed, though reasonably successful, conspiracy ... involving a local pathologist, a number of French (and probably Irish) diplomats, certain member of the Yeats family, and god knows how many bemused gravediggers and customs officials." - LitHub
"Over the decades of its enduring popularity among Black people, street lit has consistently been treated like second-class literature" – at least by the Big Five publishers. But small indie publishers know what their audiences want. - Vice
The libraries are steadfastly refusing to do such a thing, and the mayor is on thin - if any - legal grounds, but there's a fundraiser for the library just in case. - LitHub
Skyhorse Publishing acquired the books by Woody Allen, Blake Bailey, Norman Mailer and others that were dropped when controversy hit. Says Skyhorse chief Lyons, "All you hear is the takedown of the author and no analysis of the book itself.' Critics accuse him of "a libertarianism of convenience." - The Guardian
The board governing the McMinn County school district in southeastern Tennessee deemed the Pulitzer-winning book inappropriate for eighth-graders because of a drawing of a nude dead woman and some "rough, objectionable language." - CNN
Turkey and the Wolf, from the much-heralded New Orleans sandwich shop, was due to drop next month; New York Times columnist Melissa Clark's Dinner in One was to appear in March. But the copies were on a ship that lost 60 of its containers overboard. - Grub Street
"Asked which changes to the English syllabus they felt would most help their students, 80% of secondary school teachers, and 69% of primary school teachers, said they wanted more diverse and representative set texts." 99% of British students graduate without having studied a book by a nonwhite author. - The Guardian
The teachers’ objections to the book included criticism that Black characters are not fully realized and that the book romanticizes the idea of a “white savior.” - Crosscut
"(Her) career endeavor (was) to explore the fragmentary internal landscape of her generation of women, often through themes of madness, fracturing, and disorientation." - Guernica
After starting as kids’ entertainment, they were used as World War II propaganda and even a vehicle for public education about the atomic bomb. Then some comics, pursuing an adult audience, grew dark, violent and sexual enough to cause an outright moral panic. And then came the '60s. - The Nation
Reviewers are faced with essays that are additions to their already heavy workloads that could have used more time. And the inclination to take one’s frustrations out on the author is just too great. - 3 Quarks Daily
"You can't handle the truth!" or "We tell ourselves stories in order to live." "Celebrity sentences," Nicola Sayers dubs them. "There are countless brilliant sentences that never make it to celebrity status. So what's the formula? What elevates certain sentences above the others?" - 3 Quarks Daily
