The world-ending devastation of the first scathing review. The righteous indignation at the first three-star review. No one understands me. Are these people even literate? Am I even literate? It’s all too much; it doesn’t make you a better writer. Block the site and focus on your work. - The Guardian
A Goodreads blitzkrieg can derail an entire publication schedule, freak out commercial book clubs that planned to discuss the release, or even prompt nervous publishers to cut the marketing budget for controversial titles. - The Atlantic
"A group of booksellers, publishers and authors filed a lawsuit on Tuesday to stop a new law in Texas that would require stores to rate books based on sexual content, arguing the measure would violate their First Amendment rights and be all but impossible to implement." - The New York Times
Private equity firm KKR is selling RBaudio, which it bought for a reported $500 million in 2018, to Miami investment firm H.I.G. Capital at an apparent 100% profit. Industry watchers consider KKR to be a leading candidate to buy Simon & Schuster. - Publishers Weekly
As we explore new applications for large language models and consider how well they can optimize our communication, AI challenges us to reflect on the qualities we truly value in our prose. How do we measure the caliber of writing, and how well does AI perform? - Noema
"He was not seeking to escape to a purely spiritual realm. He was not seeking religion. What he sought was peace of mind. The Gita seemed to provide precisely the right philosophy for an intellectual keenly attuned to the affairs of men and the pleasures of the senses." - BBC
It’s far from clear we’re getting anything from Duolingo’s purported speed. I’m not even sure it’s fun anymore. And there are quicker ways to not learn a language. - Slate
Are you reading this on your phone, swiping up the paragraphs, swipe, swipe, swipe, wondering how far you're going to have to swipe to actually finish this thing? - Esquire
At a moment of upheaval in the arts, the suggestion that writing’s value may simply be intrinsic—a creative act worth less than the website it’s posted on—is deeply unwelcome. It can even seem like poor taste. - The Walrus
The flagging was part of a routine procedure before Smithsonian events. The institution insists that the festival was called off because the organizers were too far behind schedule on logistical planning, but some participants and observers are skeptical. - The Washington Post
One reason books haven’t been particularly disruptable might be that many of the people looking to “fix” things couldn’t actually articulate what was broken—whether through their failure to see the real problems facing the industry (namely, Amazon’s stranglehold), or their insistence that books are not particularly enjoyable as a medium. - Wired
An app is coming to your rescue (surely it will be banned soon as well). Digital Public Library of America officials say they use "GPS-based 'geo-targeting' to show readers the books that have been banned in their area, with e-book versions available to borrow digitally." - Publishers Weekly
"You'll arrive at a realm ringed by a crystal wall and enter through the blazing portal of its golden-hinged gate — which will open and close for you automatically, like at a grocery store. … Then turn and follow the broad road into heaven, paved with stars and golden dust. From beneath, you once knew it as the Milky...
"For years, venture capitalists have promised to upend books and the structures around their creation and consumption. … For the most part, despite tech's sometimes drastic effects on other industries, book- and reading-related startups failed to alter much at all. People are still buying books — in fact, they're buying more than ever." - Wired
The argument runs something like this: because commercial pressures at large houses encourage cautious commissioning, nimbler indies – operating with tighter margins – step into the void and give choice-starved readers the books that corporate imprints deem unsaleable or otherwise risky. - The Guardian
