Words

At 25, he picked up Finnegans Wake and tried to read it. He did not get far. He was stopped by a 100-letter word in the middle of the first page. How do you read a 100-letter word, he wondered? “But I’m in music school at the time, practicing the piano every day, and I realize the only way to read a 100-letter word is to practice it like I practice the piano. – The Stranger

According to a new report from an international education company that tested 2.3 million volunteers in 100 countries, the level of English as a second language is highest in Northern Europe, Singapore, and South Africa and lowest in the Arab world and parts of Asia. – The Economist

“The success of The Three-Body Problem” — the first translated novel to win a Hugo Award — “not only turned [author] Liu Cixin into a global literary star; it opened the floodgates for new translations of Chinese science fiction. This, in turn, has made Ken Liu a critical conduit for Chinese writers seeking Western audiences, a literary brand as sought-after as the best-selling authors he translates.” – The New York Times Magazine

The site’s editors wrote that the word “captures a sense of grappling with the survival — literally and figuratively — of our planet, our loved ones, our ways of life. … But, existential also inspires us to ask big questions about who we are and what our purpose is in the face of our various challenges.” (The runner-up: nonbinary.) – CNN

“Author Kristoffer Leandoer said he was leaving because he had ‘neither the patience nor the time’ to wait for the committee to complete its reforms” called for after the scandal that led to the postponement of last year’s award to this year. He said that his resignation had nothing to do with the very controversial choice for this year’s prize of Peter Handke, but the other departing member, Gun-Britt Sundström, said her decision was for just that reason. – Reuters

Danville’s method relies on new reading science. It has roots in an old way of teaching but is based on new cognitive neuroscience research that has revealed how brains process sounds and symbols. It borrows from linguistics, the study of language and its structure. Students do not memorize lists of words for spelling tests, yet the average Danville fourth grader is spelling at the sixth-grade level. – Seattle Times

Retired journalist John Richards, 96, started the Apostrophe Protection Society in 2001 to make sure the “much-abused” punctuation mark was being used correctly. “We, and our many supporters worldwide, have done our best but the ignorance and laziness present in modern times have won.” – London Evening Standard

The book, No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference, is a collection of the Swedish teenager’s speeches. Waterstone’s said Thunberg, its author of the year, “had an ‘urgent message.'” – BBC

Of course she was; Tacitus’ Annals “described the high politics, treachery and debauchery of the Roman elite.” – Reuters

Since the last bookstore closed, people in the town on Kodiak Island have had to use thrift stores and online purchases for their books. But two residents who moved back home to care for ill parents are changing that. One says, “I’ve been surprised to learn what a bookshop means to a community. … I inherently love books, and it was natural that that would be what we chose to pour all of our energy and passion into, but I didn’t realize how much people missed it in our town.” – Anchorage Daily News (Kodiak Daily Mirror)

As In the Cut is reissued, “What is more shocking about the book in 2019 than 1995 … is not the violence, or the fact of a woman having sexual desire, but how little else has changed – from misogyny to the futility of reporting it.” – The Guardian (UK)

German researchers started working on this new dictionary in the 1890s, thinking it would take 10-15 years of work. But “the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (T.L.L.) has seen the fall of an empire, two world wars and the division and reunification of Germany. In the meantime, they are up to the letter R. This is not for lack of effort.” – The New York Times

“The poem we call Gilgamesh is based on copies of a work assembled over a millennium after the earliest stories were written in Old Babylonian. … A specific scribe, editor, collator, poet is given credit for bringing it all together. He may also have been an exorcist, magician, diviner, priest or seer; or a combination of these not unrelated vocations. He was active between 1300 and 1000 BCE. … He goes by the name of Sin-leqi-unninni.” – Literary Hub

The daughters of the author, the most internationally famous Arabic-language writer in modern history, have repeatedly sued the American University in Cairo Press for what they claim are large-scale copyright violations and failure to negotiate a new licensing agreement following Mahfouz’s death in 2006. – Literary Hub

Rick Schober has published roughly four books per year, relying on “a loyal following” that shares his passion for rediscovered literary fiction and nonfiction of an offbeat and experimental variety. That loyal following translates into funding via a crowdfunding model. Those who fund the books each get a copy if they donate an amount totaling the book’s cover price or more, and books are sold via Amazon and B&N.com primarily but are also carried by some independent bookstores, “especially in the Boston area,” Schober said. The press is no moneymaker, but, he quipped, “it’s a small-gains hobby.” – Publishers Weekly

“Ten years ago I went to a speed-dating event in Belfast where I told a succession of potential dates I was a writer and was met with a unanimous sense of disappointment. “I thought you might be a nurse,” one man said, his face falling.” – Irish Times

Eliot’s work on Spinoza’s Ethics, one scholar says, “was the last thing she did before she wrote her stories and became George Eliot. A large part of Spinoza’s Ethics gives this insightful analysis of human emotion, and I think that’s something she obviously learned from, because she has this really amazing understanding of human emotions and how they work.” – The Guardian (UK)

Well, no, no wardrobe or fur coats, but “9,000 square feet of nooks, alcoves, labyrinths, and warrens.” Its customers really love it, including the way thousands of books crammed together smell. And “the store is orderly if not antiseptic. Signs are hand-lettered; there are plenty of chairs for contemplation and ladders for climbing; and, whether by accident or puckish design, the crime section stops short at a fittingly dead end.” – The New York Times

“New Zealand is hoping that by 2040, one million Kiwis will be able to speak basic te reo Māori, the Maori language. This ambitious goal is part of an official language strategy that sees the revival of New Zealand’s Indigenous language as a key part in national identity and reconciliation.” (audio) – Public Radio International

With a history going back almost 150 years, College Street in Kolkata “has every imaginable type of text, available in Bengali, English, Mandarin, Sanskrit, Dutch, and every dialect in between. Precious first editions and literary classics sit cheek by jowl with medical encyclopedias, religious texts, and pulp fiction, often precariously stacked in uneven piles that resemble jagged cliff faces.” But many of the booksellers there are worried about an enormous new mall, planned by the West Bengal state government, set to open next year as a literary hub. – Atlas Obscura

Reading books aloud might seem like an easy way to make money – you just sit there and read – “but I can assure you it isn’t. I narrated my own audiobook in 2014, an experience that I described at the time as being akin to an exorcism: three long days in a dark room, tripping through the minefield of my own words. All I could think was: If I’d known I was going to have to say this whole book out loud, I would have written a better one. Or maybe I wouldn’t have written one at all.” – Irish Times

The Chicago Reader is hitching onto the train of news outlets pivoting to nonprofit life, under the umbrella of the newly-founded Reader Institute for Community Journalism, set to launch in early 2020. This follows a similar pathway of the nonprofit Lenfest Institute owning the for-profit Philadelphia Inquirer. The Reader will pursue nonprofit status. – NiemanLab

The academy, founded in 1634 by Cardinal Richelieu, is the official gatekeeper of the French language whose members are known as ‘the immortals’. Its mission is to keep the French language pure and it frequently coins new French words to cover newly invented technology, not all of which catch on. – The Local

“An 11-count federal indictment accuses Catherine Pugh of arranging fraudulent sales of her Healthy Holly books to schools, libraries and a medical system to enrich herself, promote her political career and fund her run for mayor.” – Yahoo! (AP)

“Defined as ‘a situation in which urgent action is required to reduce or halt climate change and avoid potentially irreversible environmental damage resulting from it’, Oxford said the words soared from ‘relative obscurity’ to ‘one of the most prominent – and prominently debated – terms of 2019.’ According to the dictionary’s data, usage of ‘climate emergency’ soared 10,796%.” (Similarly, Collins Dictionary chose “climate strike” as its Word of the Year.) – The Guardian

Choi took the fiction prize for her novel Trust Exercise, while the nonfiction award went to Sarah M. Broom’s memoir The Yellow House. Winning the young people’s literature category was Martin W. Sandler’s 1919: The Year That Changed America; Arthur Sze’s Sight Lines took poetry honors. The award for translated literature went to author Laszlo Krasznahorkai and translator Ottilie Mulzet for Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming. – The Guardian