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WORDS

“Vibe Coding” Is Collins Dictionary’s 2025 Word Of The Year

“’Vibe coding,’ an emerging software development that turns natural language into computer code using artificial intelligence, … was coined ... to describe how artificial intelligence can enable someone to create a new app while being able to ‘forget that the code even exists’.” - The Guardian

Book Publishing’s Horror Genre Is Breaking Records

2024’s total figure of 836,199 was its biggest volume performance since 2009 and, so far in 2025, we have seen 628,431 books pass through the tills, an increase of 6.7% against the first 42 weeks of last year. - The Bookseller

Librarians On The Front Lines Of Civilization

The librarian is a seeker and keeper of truth, and that makes her a dangerous figure in the eyes of those who fear the fullest, most comprehensive, and most uncomfortable truths emerging. - LitHub

For First Time, Diary Collection Wins Baillie Gifford Prize For Nonfiction

“How to End a Story: Collected Diaries by Helen Garner charts the Australian writer's life from her early career in bohemian Melbourne to raising her daughter in the 1970s and her disintegrating marriage in the 1990s.” The jury’s vote was unanimous, with one judge calling it “a remarkable, addictive book.” - BBC (Yahoo!)

Prix Goncourt, France’s Top Literary Prize, Goes To 20th-Century Family Saga “The Empty House”

“Laurent Mauvignier Tuesday won France's top literary award, the Goncourt, for his family saga spanning the 20th century and recounting the story of his grandmother accused of collaborating during World War II. Just one round of voting sufficed for the jury to select La Maison Vide.” - AFP (Yahoo!)

Anne Sexton’s Horror Short Stories, Rejected By The New Yorker

Editor Roger Angell called the three stories “interesting and wholly original” but said “they seem to work in very different ways on different readers.” At least he allowed that “I’m not at all sure that we aren’t making a mistake.” That must have stung Sexton, always unsure of herself when writing prose. - Literary Hub

Documenting The Present Is Resistance

Let this be painfully clear: The future will only remember what is preserved today, and the choice is between standing by as stories are diluted or destroyed—or fighting for the record, for the archive, and for the truth with steady, everyday work that anyone can participate in. - Common Dreams

Susan Orlean On The Glory Days Of The New Yorker

Orlean allows that if there’s anything anyone should be jealous of, it’s that she had been encouraged to pursue ideas most magazine editors would dismiss as small. - New York Magazine

The Resurrection Of Books-A-Million

The retailer is in the process of opening 15 new outlets this year, which will keep the total number of outlets at over 220 spread across 32 states. - Publishers Weekly

Dear Writers, If You Use AI To ‘Fix’ Your Writing, You Are An Ass

“Writing can terrify us, confuse us, devastate us. Good writing means that you’re engaging with practices that will force you to lean into things that make you uncomfortable. Work that’s doing its job is inevitably hard.” - LitHub

British Teens, And Adults, Are In Love With Literary Angst

For instance: “Turkish author Sabahattin Ali’s 1943 novel Madonna in a Fur Coat, first published by Penguin in 2016, has rocketed this year, selling almost 30,000 copies in the UK and outstripping even Pride and Prejudice. It’s another anguished story of frustrated love.” - The Guardian (UK)

The Past Is Never Dead, Despite Attempts To Devalue Historical Fiction

While some in the literary world are snobs, one author says she considers the best of historical fiction “a lens forged from the experience of the past, through which we may view the concerns of the present with renewed clarity.” - Irish Times

The French, With A Wonderful Pun, Establish A New Prize For Lesbian Literature

“Lauriane Nicol threw herself wholeheartedly into the creation of the Prix Gouincourt (gouine is a slang term for lesbian), an ironic hat tip to France's most celebrated literary award, the Prix Goncourt.” - Le Monde (Archive Today)

Emma Thompson Would Like To Strangle Microsoft’s AI So-Called Helper

The actor, who is also a talented and award-winning screenwriter, told Stephen Colbert, “I end up just going, ‘I don’t need you to fucking rewrite what I’ve just written! Will you fuck off? Just fuck off! I’m so annoyed.’” - The Guardian (UK)

How Scotland Shaped Frankenstein, The Book, Not To Mention The New Movie

Sure, Geneva played a famous part, but a bleak part of Scotland was where it all began in young Mary Shelley’s imagination. - BBC

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