Often, their authors are all too clearly estranged from the full resources of the English language: What should be putty in their hands is tough, fibrous, unworkable. Or they just can’t be bothered. They plunk down words one after the other like inopportune Tetris blocks, mismatched, ill fitting, and in the wrong order. - Hedgehog Review
The chattering classes – another useful Britishism – have a persistent desire for ostensibly clever ways to say stuff. They have borrowed from Wall Street, Silicon Valley, teen culture, African American vernacular, sports and hip-hop, and they increasingly borrow from Britain. - The Guardian
The dense Mukogodo Forest, one of the largest in east Africa, is the traditional home of the Yaaku. Originally hunter-gatherers, they looked after the 300 sq km forest, using it for hunting, rituals and to collect plants and honey. “If we lost the language, we have lost the culture, we have lost the forest." - The Guardian
Despite having been banned under the 35-year dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner, Guaraní is now, alongside Spanish, a fully official language of the country. Half of all public school classes in Paraguay are taught in Guaraní, and young people smoothly switch between it and Spanish even within a sentence. - The World
"The National Book Foundation has announced the finalists for the 2024 National Book Awards. The winners in each of the five categories — fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translated literature, and young people's literature — will be announced during an awards ceremony on November 20." - Publishers Weekly
"If a change of style is a change of subject, as Wallace Stevens averred, then a change of syntax is a change of meaning. Word order is, if not all, then nine tenths. I exaggerate, but I do so advisedly, as a corrective to the overemphasis on word choice." - The Hedgehog Review
"I think that is where the danger lies, because we can track the books that are being banned, but we can’t track books that are not being ordered.” - NBCNews
The overuse of certain words and phrases leads to writing losing its personal touch. It becomes harder to distinguish between individual voices and perspectives and everything takes on a robotic undertone. - The Conversation
The coalition has made four demands of the Book Fair: to condemn Israel’s regime of genocide in Gaza and affirm the human rights of the Palestinian people. - LitHub
“The chosen titles 'remind us of the power of queer storytelling at a time when some would see our books and stories banned,’ said prize founder Paul Burston.” - The Guardian (UK)
“This is what happens when the big fish eat all the little fish: grim times for employees, writers and, ultimately, readers. Should those of us who care about Australian books and literature be alarmed by these latest acquisitions” - Crikey
D&D is "a folk practice for generating stories that are both visionary and ephemeral,” a practice which can help create, or sustain, novelists. - LitHub
