ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

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2024 National Book Critics Circle Award Winners: Lorrie Moore, Judy Blume, ALA

"Moore, best known as a short-story writer, won the fiction prize for her novel, I Am Homeless if This Is Not My Home. … Blume was the recipient of the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award … (and) the American Library Association was given the Toni Morrison Achievement Award, established to honor institutions." - AP

To This We’ve Come: Virginia School District Censors Book About A Hermaphroditic Species Of Oak Tree

"The Floyd County (Va.) Public Schools have suspended a One Division, One Book community reading of Katherine Applegate’s Wishtree following complaints that the middle-grade novel depicts a monoecious red oak, a tree with reproductive parts that can pollinate and flower simultaneously." - Publishers Weekly

Machine Breakthrough In Reading Ancient Texts

Using a non-invasive method that harnesses machine learning, an international trio of scholars retrieved 15 columns of ancient Greek text from within a carbonized papyrus from Herculaneum, a seaside Roman town eight kilometres southeast of Naples, Italy. - The Conversation

Silicon Valley Disruption Comes To A Books Model

Authors Equity brings Silicon Valley–style startup disruption to the business of books. It has a tiny core staff, offloading its labor to a network of freelancers; it has angel investors; and it is upending the way that authors get paid, eschewing advances and offering a higher percentage of profits instead. - The Baffler

Why Some People Become Lifelong Readers

Leisure reading has been linked to a range of good academic and professional outcomes—as well as difficult to fully explain. But a chief factor seems to be the household one is born into, and the culture of reading that parents create within it. - The Atlantic

Polyglots In fMRI Machines Help Researchers Study How The Brain Processes Language(s)

"With one intriguing exception, activity increased in the areas of the cerebral cortex involved in the brain's language-processing network when these polyglots — who spoke between five and 54 languages — heard languages in which they were the most proficient compared to ones of lesser or no proficiency." - Reuters

What LitBlogging Turned Into

In short, the literary weblog may have prepared the way for a critical writing about literature online that not just rivalled but eventually exceeded both in quantity and depth what had been available in general-interest print publications, but in the end it has reconstructed the apparatus that makes literary commentary an elite practice. - The Reading Experience

Why Are An Increasing Number Of Writers Okay With Censoring Other Writers?

The spectacle of writers refusing to entertain the work of other writers in the name of freedom never fails to dispirit, though at this point it no longer surprises. - The New York Times

The Latest Challenge For European Publishers And Translators: Younger People Are Reading In English

"A panel yesterday at the London Book Fair addressed the threat of English-language editions cannibalizing or otherwise supplanting sales of translated books, as the TikTok generation is increasingly happy to read in English." - Publishers Weekly

Spotify Promoting Audiobooks Using Some Music Industry Techniques

Combined with the promo page and countdown clock, the feature allows authors to engage in fandom in a way that is more typical of music than publishing. It’ll launch in mid-April. - The Verge

Historical Fiction Is Hot Right Now. Why?

Can historical fiction even be considered a genre of its own? Its many varieties share few common attributes other than that they all take place in the past. Even the simplest qualities are hard to pin down: for instance, how far back do you have to go? - The Drift

Libraries Struggle to Afford Access To E-Books, Which Are More Expensive Than Paper

While one hardcover copy of a novel costs the library $18, it costs $55 to lease a digital copy — a price that can't be haggled with publishers. And for that, the e-book expires after a limited time, usually after one or two years, or after 26 checkouts, whichever comes first. - ABCNews

Publishing Should Not Rely On Gig Workers

"Look a little more closely, and ‘growing pool of freelancers’ is a terrible euphemism for ‘jobs are disappearing and more and more of us are fighting for scraps by competing for freelance gigs.’” - LitHub

What We Keep When We Death-Clean Our Shelves

"What is a home for if not to fill it with books? What would I do without them? I can’t get rid of these stories, even though I’ve internalized them. They’re part of me. They’re mine, and the physical reminder of that needs to be here, on the shelf.” - Reactor

The Gender Of Crossword Puzzles

"What kinds of intellectual work is considered worthy of our attention? What boxes have women historically been permitted to fill?” - The New York Times

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