Charlotte Higgins: "It was by such steps" as well-timed leaks and carefully fanned disagreements "that the Booker became not just a book prize, but a heady tangle of arguments, controversy and speculation: a cultural institution." - The Guardian
Following this year's conflict-of-interest scandal (not the first), administrators of the Prix Goncourt have declared that any book by a family member or unmarried lover of a juror is ineligible and that jurors may not publish reviews of any semifinalist or finalist title. - Deutsche Welle
"A food memoir that examines a mother's schizophrenia. A novel about an author's book tour, and about growing up as a Black boy in the rural South. Poetry honoring migrants who drowned while trying to cross the Rio Grande." - The New York Times
Following Hachette's purchase this past summer of Workman Publishing, "there is a dearth of what can be called midsize publishers that fall between the Big Five and the many independent publishers with sales of $20 million or less." - Publishers Weekly
Let’s start with what should be obvious: email is a bad way to communicate. There’s the way it gives license to verbiage, turning simple conversations into an exchange of over-crafted essays. - Prospect
If what fiction most essentially is for us is a volume of commodified time, one of the most notorious facts of contemporary literary life is that there is so little time for it. - BookForum
Print books are in trouble: "Trucks are more expensive, containers are more expensive, labor is more expensive. ... It used to be that you would place a purchase order, and it would just arrive two weeks later. Now, it’s 10 touches and 15 emails." - The New York Times
The study of classics should not make anyone feel ashamed because Asia intersects there, India intersects there, Africa intersects there, the Middle East intersects there. The ancient writers don’t try to hide that so much as we do. - The Point
The fantasy that you can say something so perfectly and with such absolute authority that it never needs another version told from another point of view, as my grandfather might have believed, is long over. - The New York Times
In 1975, aged 25, Gayl Jones shook the American literary world with her novel Corregidora. After more books and a turbulent personal life, Jones assumed a Salinger-style public silence in 1998. Imani Perry examines Jones's biography and writing to understand why. - The New York Times Magazine
This design trend, well into its third or fourth year in the major publishing houses, has attracted plenty of nicknames and attendant discourse online—culture critic Jeva Lange calls it “blobs of suggestive colors,” while writer Alana Pockros calls it the “unicorn frappuccino cover.” - Print
"New research suggests that it's not as difficult as experts previously thought for adults to pick up a new language. Immersing yourself in a new language as a family might just be one of the most effective — and easiest — ways to learn a new language." - National Geographic
“This fall, the global publishing business can expect disruption in shipping, increases in costs throughout the supply chain, shortages in consumables used for packing and shipping, and shortages in manufacturing supplies for books and printed matter." - Jane Friedman
"Combining humor, everyday language use, and relatable situations, these videos" — from the Manitoba Indigenous Cultural Education Centre in Winnipeg — "are contributing to making the language accessible, especially during the ongoing pandemic when many people were at home." - Global Voices
Angus Fletcher claims that fairy tales, free indirect discourse, autobiography, and such are “technology,” and that their primary purpose is medicinal, so that neuroscience should supplant traditional criticism. - Los Angeles Review of Books
