As inflation persists, the country is roiled by protests against President Macron's pension reforms, and Fitch downgrades French bonds, Bruno Le Maire has drawn fury for spending his time writing sex fantasy — and hoots of ridicule for one sex scene in particular. - The Guardian
"I have never subscribed to the strained idea that the characteristics of one’s handwriting provides a subtle indicator of one’s personality... but I do think there is something visible that communicates an attitude, a willingness to show through muscular coordination and flair." - LitHub
"The best sales pitch is the threat of censorship. It draws attention to books that might otherwise have gone under the radar." What's more, "we tend to believe that when books are censored, they are obliterated or withdrawn from view. But more often they are edited to increase sales." - The Guardian
A push that began last summer to remove a few children's sexual education books from the southern Manitoba library system has since bubbled up into accusations its staff are pedophiles, as well as a campaign to defund the library — leaving some of its exhausted librarians considering quitting, the library's director says. - CBC
To show you what this process looks like, we trained six tiny language models starting from scratch. We’ve picked one trained on the complete works of Jane Austen, but you can choose a different path. - The New York Times
When Adnan Kivan bought the Kyiv Post, he promised editorial independence; when the paper became too critical of the Ukrainian government for his taste, he sacked the staff. Within a month they launched the online, reader-funded Kyiv Independent, which now has 10,000 supporters. - Press Gazette (UK)
"They have popped up like mushrooms after rain," says one visitor. Charlotte Higgins, The Guardian's chief culture writer, visits three of them. - The Guardian
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, whose new novel incorporates a lot of trademarks in prisons: "Once you go into that for-profit model and also think about the slave labor that the incarcerated people in our country are doing ... there's so much profit existing in the carceral space." - NPR
When you can't find a place to just sit down in the middle of a city, the library is there, with books, newspapers, community meetings, and more. "You won’t get this anywhere else and you can do it all for free." - Irish Times
While some people are going all in and covering entire walls in fake books, others are aghast at the thought that someone would think to decorate with a book that isn’t real. - The New York Times
An editor at Exberliner, the English-language monthly magazine for expats in Germany's capital, considers the quirky ways in which Deutsch and English mix in Berlin — and what it means to be a native speaker of the tongue everybody else uses as a second language. - The European Review of Books
Publishers and libraries ought to be on the same side: libraries aim to advance learning by providing free and open access to information; publishing literally means to disseminate to the public. Big publishers suing a digital library—during an unprecedented assault on libraries’ purpose and function—is a weird look. - The Walrus
Two Kiev-based publications, Solomiya and Telegraf, and a dissident magazine from inside Russia, BL8D (pronounced "blood"), are using visual art, fashion photography, interviews and essays to engage young people in Ukraine and Europe with the conflict and, hopefully, contribute to aid organizations. - The Guardian
"The staff of Paper Magazine, the pop culture publisher made famous by the 2014 'Break the Internet' photo shoot with Kim Kardashian, was laid off Wednesday. … The publisher itself is not shuttering, but is instead seeking to cut costs as it looks toward alternative options to remain in operation." - Adweek
"A longtime librarian at Roxbury High School in Morris County (New Jersey) has sued a group of residents she says defamed her by falsely claiming her library has pornographic books and she is a child predator." - NJ.com
