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Pangram Says Use Of Its AI Detector Is Increasing

Many still dispute the validity and accuracy of AI detection tools. The Atlantic’s Matteo Wong wrote that “while Pangram is accumulating the power to end reputations and careers, the tool does make mistakes, perhaps to a greater extent than is currently understood”. - Bookseller

Why Annie Dillard Deserved A Nobel

She deserved the prize, first of all, as the major practitioner of literary nonfiction. The committee has historically overlooked this genre. - 3 Quarks Daily

The Growing Popularity Of Audiobook Walking Clubs

Audiobook walking clubs are now emerging around the country, turning an activity typically enjoyed solo into a low-pressure social event. For about an hour, everyone listens to a book of their choosing as they walk, then gathers afterward to compare notes, trade recommendations, and—in many cases—make plans to see each other again. - Time

Anne Carson Wins 2026 Nobel Prize For Literature

The Canadian poet, essayist, and translator of ancient Greek drama was cited “for her bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature.” - AP

Behind The Scenes: How They Choose The Winner Of The Nobel Prize For Literature

The Swedish Academy does not discuss the criteria it uses for selecting Nobel laureates, but here are the basics of how the process works. - Deutsche Welle

What MacKenzie Scott Bezos’ Serialized Book Says About How Amazon Has Changed Publishing

The former wife of a man who built a notorious empire by making other people’s books ever easier to buy and, eventually, ever easier to produce has herself produced a novel that seems to have stepped directly into the literary territory that Amazon helped make so fertile. - The New Yorker

Finalists For This Year’s National Book Awards

The winners in each of the five categories—fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translated literature, and young people's literature—will be announced at an awards ceremony on November 18. - Publishers Weekly

Audible Introduces Interactive Features To Its Audiobooks

“On Thursday, the Amazon-owned company introduced three new features that will allow listeners to explore a book’s characters, engage in interactive stories, and view additional imagery and bonus information about landmarks or places mentioned in the book.” Unfortunately, for now this all is available with only one title. - TechCrunch

Is The Reason The Voynich Manuscript Is So Confounding Because The Pages Are Out Of Order?

“In … peer-reviewed journal Digital Medievalist, (two researchers) argue that the manuscript’s folded sheets may have originally been piled on top of each other as ‘singulions’ – like a stack of Christmas cards – but were mis-bound in a more typical ‘nested’ arrangement at some point in the mid-to-late 15th century.” - The Guardian

Will We Still Need Punctuation When Machines Are Writing?

What are those commas doing there, anyway? By modern usage, they should mark off a non-restrictive clause, but they don’t. Nor are they marking items in a series or natural pauses in speech.  - The New Yorker

The NFL Is Trying To Woo New Fans With Its Own Romance Writing

That is ... not going well (though romance readers are still gaga for M/M, W/W, and M/W hockey tales from more traditional channels). Fans "see the stories as cheap pandering that fails to engage with female and LGBTQ hockey fans’ concerns about homophobia and toxic masculinity in the sport." - Wired

What, Exactly, Is Literary Substack?

As Substack has become a more respectable platform and mainstream academics have begun to join in some numbers, they have encountered a strange simulacrum of fields they thought they knew intimately. Cultural and symbolic capital seem to work differently here. - Paroxysms

In Censor-Happy Texas, School Librarians And Teachers Are Afraid To Discuss Books

"When you put your finger on every single book in order to type it into a spreadsheet, you really do think, ‘Am I willing to lose my job over this particular book?’ ... I think that is a real concern for teachers around the state." - The 74

Russia’s War On Ukraine’s Books

"In total, this summer, 13 Ukrainian books have been destroyed by Russian missiles or drones – a third, estimates the government, of all books printed in Ukraine this year." - The Guardian (UK)

So Now There’s Apparently ‘Weird Girl Lit’?

Emerging from Reddit, the subgenre is not fully defined, but "books that get called weird girl lit tend to deal in uncanny or dreamlike circumstances." - The New York Times

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