“72% of demands to censor books were initiated by pressure groups, government entities and elected officials, board members and administrators, reported the American Library Association (ALA). Just 16% of ban attempts were made by parents, while 5% were brought forward by individual library users.” - The Guardian
The college essay is a deeply unfair way to select students for top colleges, one that is much more biased against the poor than standardized tests. It wrongly encourages students to cast themselves as victims, to exaggerate the adversity they’ve faced, and to turn genuinely upsetting experiences into the focal point of their self-understanding. - Yascha Mounk
“I see all that being as a measure of: ‘If we fly under the radar, we’ll be safe,’” they said. “But it’s sad because who gets left behind – for staff members of color, who are visibly queer, who are disabled, we don’t get to turn off that part of ourselves.” - The Guardian
The list also includes “Memorializing the Holocaust,” Janet Jacobs’s examination of depictions of women in the Holocaust, and “How to Be Anti-Racist” by Ibram X. Kendi. Also listed are “The Making of Black Lives Matter,” by Christopher J. Lebron; “How Racism Takes Place,” by George Lipsitz,,, - The New York Times
Amazon boycotts are gaining more widespread attention as some people seek ways to protest the growing influence of billionaires in government and public life. - Wisconsin Public Radio
The tariff documents include an annex listing exempt items, among which are listed “printed books, brochures, leaflets and similar printed matter.” The tariffs could, however, affect the supply of materials and equipment, and no one seems assured that the exemptions will be accepted or that there won’t be further tariffs. - The Bookseller (UK)
“Cúirt is the time when all of us grassroots people get to celebrate literature and writing in our own city. ... Writers are very generous with what they share: they don’t hedge or hold anything back.” - Irish Times
“You can only make jokes about an enemies to lovers romance novel about two rival realtors who are also randomly immortal werewolves just trying to live a normal life in the mortal world if you’ve actually read said novel.” - LitHub
The problem is in the evaluators, not the kids: “‘Code-mixing, or using two languages in the same sentence, is often interpreted as confusion. It's actually a ‘normal part of bilingual development,’ and even a sign of ‘bilingual children's ingenuity,’ according to the researchers.” - NPR
Four of the Big Five publishers—Hachette Book Group, Macmillan Publishers, Penguin Random House, and Simon & Schuster—and Sourcebooks sent a letter to Congress on April 3 expressing “deep concern” over the state of the nation’s libraries following a week of unprecedented turmoil at the Institute of Museum and Library Services. - Publishers Weekly
“Picador, the paperback arm of FSG, will embark on ... the trade paperback reissue of all 75 Inspector Maigret novels over a three-year period starting in spring 2025. Reissues of 30 of his standalone psychological noirs — which Simenon himself called romans durs, or ‘hard novels’ — will follow beginning in winter 2026.” - Publishers Weekly
Fandom has long facilitated deep dives into media in which fans analyse, discuss and track their favourite storylines and character arcs. This has been particularly true of the science fiction and fantasy genres, due to their complex and expansive narrative universes. - The Conversation
Automated bots seeking AI model training data for LLMs have been vacuuming up terabytes of data, growing the foundation's bandwidth used for downloading multimedia content by 50 percent since January 2024. - Ars Technica
As a professor of computer science who has authored hundreds of works on artificial intelligence, including AI textbooks that cover social impact of large language models, I think understanding how the models work can help writers and educators consider the limitations and potential uses of AI for what might be called “creative” writing. - The Conversation
