Novelists increasingly defined their craft by opposing tradition, and so placed themselves at loggerheads with most of their possible audience. There is something essentially Pyrrhic about the triumphs of “Ulysses” (1920) and “The Man Without Qualities." - The Wall Street Journal (MSN)
"The store’s 110 unionized workers went on strike in the middle of the busy holiday season, leaving the shop’s '18 miles of books' to be run by a skeleton staff. … The union wants base pay to increase from $16 an hour, which is minimum wage in New York City, to $18 an hour." - Gothamist
It does not have to be clear or obscure. In the voyage out between these binaries – between the oil spills, thistles and phantoms a novel might pass on the way, between desire, disappointment and the people who clean offices at dawn on page 33 – a novel can reach for understanding and re-examine meaning. - New Statesman
"When Barnes & Noble took over they were saying, 'Hey, this is the Tattered Cover. The name Barnes & Noble will be nowhere in the store.' And then we got all this stuff, like machines, that said Barnes & Noble on them. - Westword
“The phenomenon of the lesbian pulp paperback — and it was a phenomenon, both culturally and financially — … was both problematic and pioneering, although neither word adequately describes something that was at once a cynical business proposition and a burgeoning art form.” - The New York Times
“Some of the critics’ critics miss the old days because they conflate harshness with honesty. This logic assumes that most nice reviews are written by compromised liars. For starters, I think that’s pretty condescending.” - LitHub
“To get in the moment takes immense concentration. And that's the first thing that usually goes. So it's not your voice, generally. And when you get tired, that's when you lose the sense of exploration, sense of play, inventiveness, all of that. ... And that's when you should stop.” - NPR
Chiang, author of the short story that was turned into the movie Arrival, is only the second SF writer to win the PEN/Malamud Award, a lifetime achievement award for short stories. - Associated Press
This paucity of first-person storytelling is striking. Among the best writing of our current century, have so few people written well enough about their lives to qualify? Where are all the memoirs? - The Walrus
Some Giller winners state that “the only way to remedy what has been a deeply divisive period in Canadian arts is for the chief funders of so many arts prizes and organizations in Canada — banks such as Scotiabank — to divest from companies whose products are currently being used in mass killing.” - The Conversation
It turns out that there is some benefit to working in an industry that is clearly contracting but has not yet died. It forces you to think. Which is anyway your job, if you’re a teacher. As Samuel Johnson said of the death penalty, it concentrates the mind. - Plough
We’ve had enough of endless, disappointing BookTok recommendations that promise payoff, not to mention its other cons. So are we finally at the end of BookTok’s chapter? - BookRiot
"Tortoise agreed to invest £25 million ($31.9 million) in the British title over the next five years and has pledged to keep publishing the print edition of the approximately 230-year-old paper. Under the terms of the deal, the Scott Trust will become a key shareholder in Tortoise Media." - Bloomberg (MSN)
