"The word, used by singer Charli XCX as the title of her sixth studio album, has been defined as 'characterized by a confident, independent, and hedonistic attitude.' Collins lexicographers said on Friday that in the phrase 'brat summer,' it became 'one of the most talked about words of 2024.'" - AP
I think this is important: memories and ideas happen in a place. An essay is a place for ideas; it has to feel like a place. It has to give one the feeling of entering a room. - The Georgia Review
"The Star-Ledger, Times of Trenton and South Jersey Times will all move to online-only editions. … But because the Ledger will shut down its plant in Montville, New Jersey, the long-running Jersey Journal" — which covers the cities across the Hudson from Manhattan — "will shut down entirely after 157 years of operation." - Gothamist
The 18th edition of the now-118-year-old guide has expanded sections on copyright, inclusive language (yes, it endorses the singular "they"), and how to credit non-text-based media and material generated by artificial intelligence. - Los Angeles Review of Books
Just the last few decades, hundreds of thousands of people speaking hundreds of languages have arrived in New York from heavily minority and Indigenous zones of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. At the very moment when languages worldwide are disappearing at an unprecedented rate, many of the last speakers are on the move. - LitHub
The phenomenon — in which bookstores open at midnight on a title's release date, so readers can get their fix as quickly as possible — started with the Harry Potter and Twilight series. Now publishers of serious literature are picking up the practice for some hotly-anticipated novels. - Publishers Weekly
Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell blurred the lines - long-listed for the Booker, won a Hugo - but the author herself, not too long after the surprisingly, epically popular novel came out, collapsed, unable to write for years. - The New York Times
“Of course the death of Charlotte was horribly sad, but far worse in my opinion was the moment when, during Wilbur the Pig’s hour of greatest need, the girl who owned him decided she’d rather go on the ferris wheel with Henry Fussy.” - The Guardian (UK)
“Reading books is a battle in a way that, once upon a time, it wasn’t. That is to say: it’s never a battle while I’m inside the activity itself but granting myself permission to get inside it can be.” - Tom Cox
Bernadine Evaristo, Booker winner for Girl, Woman, Other, is “paying it forward” by hosting writer residencies at her house. “We need to build a more supportive infrastructure to help writers from every background thrive and, in doing so, keep literature in all its life-enhancing manifestations, alive.” - LitHub
“I want to make sure my grandchildren grow up in a world where they can read and form opinions based on knowledge, not on a narrow truth.” - The Cut (MSN)
Many consumers likely don’t know the difference between a print-on-demand book and a traditionally produced paperback, at least not at first. But once you do notice, you can’t unsee it. - LitHub
It isn’t the first poem to slip the surly bonds of Earth and it won’t be the last. But its origin story is a reminder of the link between art and science, and the way inspiration flows in both directions. - The New York Times
Quibble with its gaucheness all you want, but a huge number of people have formed an opinion about Comic Sans, in the same way someone might form an opinion about art. - Slate (MSN)
