In a move that’s perhaps more symbolic than business-minded, Barnes & Noble, America’s largest retail bookseller, has reclaimed the flagship store it vacated in 2013. It’s just one of over 60 new locations opening this year as part of an ambitious expansion plan that seemed impossible before CEO James Daunt took over in 2018. - CNN
It sure is. “Many AI systems have been trained on TV and film writers’ work. Not just on The Godfather and Alf, but on more than 53,000 other movies and 85,000 other TV episodes. … The files within this data set are not scripts, exactly. Rather, they are subtitles.” - The Atlantic
How Jeanette Winterson sold Oranges Are not the Only Fruit: Randomly, because she met at editor at a job interview. "Philippa said: ‘If you can write it the way you tell it, I’ll buy it.’” - The Guardian (UK)
“Once we got back about ten years, I had a much better sense of what had lasted, what was really lastingly good and not just shiny. … The closer we get to the present the less perspective we have.” - Reactor Magazine
But that his most recent book is up for both fiction and nonfiction prizes pleases him. “I thought much about my parents who, in a world they knew to be meaningless, nevertheless asserted an idea of love as their answer to the horrors out of which my island home is torn.” - The Guardian (UK)
“The Prado has been bringing novelists to live in an apartment overlooking the museum. They stay for periods ranging from three to six weeks, but they are not expected to write there. All they have to do is look at the art.” - The New York Times
"Plans (are) to relaunch it in January as a parody of conspiracy theorists. 'Our goal in a couple of years is for people to think of Infowars as the funniest and dumbest website that exists,' said Ben Collins, The Onion’s CEO. 'It was previously the dumbest website that exists.'" - AP
Calkins’s critics say that her refusal to acknowledge the importance of phonics has tainted not just Units of Study—a reading and writing program that stretches up to eighth grade—but her entire educational philosophy, known as “balanced literacy. - The Atlantic (MSN)
Everyone seemed to know which books the term picked out, what the generic bones of the novel were, and why novels mattered. People talked about “the death of the novel” as though it could mark an inflection point in the history of civilization. - The New Yorker
In a classic case of life imitating parody, the liberal-leaning humor outlet ("America's Finest News Source") purchased Jones's conspiracy-mongering far-right website at a bankruptcy auction held to cover part of the $1.5 billion verdict Jones owes for slandering families of the Sandy Hook school shooting victims. - CNN
Even beyond social media, the internet seems to flatten prose. This is likely due to the distinct ways our brains interpret text – or, how they have been user-engineered to do so –when reading online. - Spike Art
Librarians around the country are struggling to reconcile their desire to serve their communities with their need for self-preservation, especially as libraries have become hubs for social services and battlegrounds for the culture wars. - The New York Times
"Harvey’s tale of six fictional astronauts on the International Space Station was 'unanimously' chosen as the winner after a 'proper day' considering the six-strong shortlist, according to the judging chair, the artist and author Edmund de Waal." - The Guardian
"As cultural detectives, they cast a wide net, creating a history for a nation that did not yet exist. The idea of one Germany was itself a fairy tale, a political construct shopping for an origin myth." - The American Scholar
The idea came as she was copying annotations she’d made for Tom Lake. “In the copying, I could see what I had done and what it was worth. Wouldn’t there be readers who would want to see a book taken apart in order to show how it had been put together?” - LitHub
