Matthew Redmond teaches this class at Stanford in part "to disrupt what seems an obvious distinction between development and result, closure and continuity. On careful inspection, it is surprisingly difficult to tell what makes a novel, or any piece of writing, truly finished." Yet there was another factor this past fall quarter, "a period defined by the constant escalation...
As more and more of the internet is consolidated, discredited, and co-opted by capital, Wikipedia begins to look like a vestige of a bygone era. With its volunteer-run editing process and its open-source ethos, the site may be the one success of an early-internet ethos (crowdsourced, democratized information-sharing, with little centralized control) that otherwise has come to look like...
"Google and a French publishers' lobby said on Thursday they had agreed a copyright framework under which the U.S. tech giant will pay news publishers for content online, in a first for Europe. The move paves the way for individual licensing agreements for French publications, some of which have seen revenues drop with the rise of the Internet and...
After the small queer women's publisher Labrisz released a book of fairytales, titled Wonderland Is For Everyone, that includes LGBTQ characters, the right-wing government of Viktor Orbán's Fidesz party ordered Labrisz to affix a sticker saying that the book depicts "behavior inconsistent with traditional gender roles" to every title it publishes to which that statement applies. - Reuters
Just a year ago, one of New Zealand's largest magazine publishers decided to shut itself off and sell off its titles (if it could), portending doom for the industry. Not only were all the titles sold (and they're still publishing), but a new wave of publications dedicated to New Zealand's tradition of long-form feature journalism. - The Guardian
"Gibert Jeune, a popular chain, has announced it will be closing its flagship shop in the Latin Quarter in March – the latest in a series of closures and appeals for help that threaten the future of the city's booksellers. Gibert Jeune once attracted long queues of students in search of cheap secondhand books before the start of each...
This is not great. "We are condemned to navigate the Space Age world with Stone Age minds; because of this inherent biological anachronism, man is the ape that imitates, tells stories, and morally condemns others." - LitHub
Of course, if you've already read Parable of the Sower, much of the last four years might have felt a little too eerily familiar. But moving on: "Butler was an observer and ponderer. The probing mind that animates her novels, short stories and essays is obsessed with the viability of the human enterprise. Will we survive our worst habits?...
In the UK, for instance, publishing company Mills & Boon (the company that just landed Fergie as an author) publishes 700 books a year and sells one book every 10 seconds or so (and that's only 16 percent of the romances sold per year in the UK). Author "Annie O’Neil, the writer of 25 Mills & Boon books, said...
Hurrah for copyright expiration: There are many new editions, with introductions and critical essays by voices that haven't been heard enough in the American canon. Then there are the graphic novels, editions with lavish new art, a novel about Nick Carraway's life before Jay Gatsby, The Gay Gatsby (Just how is that different from the original, you may wonder?...
Amanda Gorman will read a poem called "The Hill We Climb" at the inaugural ceremony on Wednesday (assuming it goes according to plan). "Unlike most 22-year-olds, Gorman has experience in inaugural poetry, having written one for the inauguration of Harvard’s president Larry Bacow." - LitHub
Megha Majumdar, author of A Burning: "I grew up middle class and I went to school, and from the school bus you’d see kids washing plates in the gutter, working at these little roadside eateries. We had to get school uniforms made, and the tailor’s apprentice would be a person your age. Books are very meaningful to me; at...
"One of the first lessons you learn in grad school is to hide your personal taste or risk being shamed for liking the wrong sorts of things. Scholars have been conditioned to respond to talk of likes and dislikes with embarrassment, if not outright contempt. The facade of critical detachment may be on the way out, however." - Public...
