"Frost, who turned 20 in 1894, uncertain of his gift, … had written a poem called 'My Butterfly.' … It is what it is, a bad poem. A random-feeling extrusion of lyrical matter, like something that might come out of the tube when you pull the lever marked POETRY." - The Atlantic (MSN)
"A group of independent publishers has formally incorporated as the Publishers Cooperative, a new organization aimed at leveraging collective buying power and sharing resources. The cooperative … is currently seeking seven additional mid-sized publishers to join its eight founding members." - Publishers Weekly
The bibliophobia of the title, Chihaya assures us, only “occasionally manifests as an acute, literal fear of books.” More often, it “develops as a generalized anxiety about reading in patients who have previously experienced profound — perhaps too profound — attachments to books and literature.” - Washington Post
"Faber, the storied U.K. independent publisher, has launched a new division, Faber US, in the United States. The move comes a decade after Faber first nodded to plans to enter the American market and months after fellow British publishing fixture Bloomsbury rolled out a new U.S.-based sales team." - Publishers Weekly
Since its founding a decade ago, Tilted Axis has gained a reputation for bringing out a wide range of groundbreaking, genre-defying literature in translation. With only eight employees working part-time on a tight budget, it has published 42 books translated from 18 languages. - The New York Times
“I’m not the only one feeling it—romance is zeitgeisting. Over the past few years, authors and booksellers have noticed a change in the genre’s cultural perception.” - LitHub
“Tilted Axis has carved out a unique literary niche, and has caught the attention of critics and prize juries, landing major awards and winning acclaim for writers who were unknown in the Anglophone world.” - The New York Times
Turns out that the mass production of cards led, in effect, to the manufacturing of emotions (not only affection) in and for the people who would buy them. - The Conversation
"At stake: the immortality conferred on those who make a once-in-a-century intellectual breakthrough. Three men — driven by boundless curiosity, a love of risk, and the distinctive demons of aspiration and ambition — were most responsible for making the contest possible." - Smithsonian Magazine
The word "run" has 645 definitions just as a verb (plus others as a noun), and it took an Oxford English Dictionary lexicographer nine months working them all out and writing them up. (The two runners-up for greatest number of definitions are also three-letter verbs.) - Mental Floss
Pressures from the Trump administration threaten an already beleaguered research enterprise that historically has thrived on doing basic research with minimal influence from partisan politics and industry profit-seeking. - Post Alley
The magazine's primary financial backer at its launch was one of founding editor Harold Ross's poker buddies, who was a yeast magnate. A few months in, Ross very nearly lost the magazine after a poker binge; fortunately, the yeast magnate (ahem) rose to the occasion. - The Conversation
One big author and one major publisher announced within weeks of each other that they were through with the practice of blurbs, and the resulting conversation threw publishing into a tizzy. In the process, it provided a new lens on who has access to clout and resources in an increasingly precarious industry. - Vox
According to Leah Koch, just two things make a romance novel: a central love story and a happy ending. “A criticism I hear a lot is, ‘Well, how is that interesting?’ The whole point to me is how we get from point A to point B,” she said. - The New Yorker
