Today the wealth gap is just as significant as it was in Gatsby’s time, but now everyone has a phone. No matter our background, we can observe decadent lifestyles via celebrities and influencers. Social media allows us all to understand Gatsby’s very particular form of envy and social climbing. - The Guardian
Bryan Burroughs: “For sheer cushiness, there’s a case to be made that there has never been a more palatial home for writers than Vanity Fair during Graydon Carter’s twenty-five-year run as editor. … If I share my part of its story accurately, you will probably hate me.” - The Yale Review
According to a new NPR/Ipsos poll, reading is something a majority of Americans enjoy, and want to get better at. But it's nowhere near a top priority. - NPR
“The American Library Association (ALA) and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), whose members include museum and library workers nationwide, have sued over what the ALA called, in a release, ‘the Trump administration’s gutting of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).’” - Publishers Weekly
“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
