WORDS

No, AI Is Not Killing Reading

AI summaries differ in speed, scale, and uncertain accuracy, but not in their basic educational function. They compress and translate. They can provide a map before we enter unfamiliar territory. - AI In

Utah’s Board Of Education Bans Stephen King’s “Different Seasons”

“It’s a collection that includes stories which inspired the acclaimed movies ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ and ‘Stand By Me’. Libraries in (four) school districts removed the book. Under a 2022 Utah law, that means it can be removed from schools statewide, since at least three districts banned it.” - Utah Public Radio

“Catcher In The Rye” At 75

Pour out a Scotch and soda — make that a malted milk — for this spry codger of a novel that’s stayed on the dance floor long past when might be expected, leaping over book bans from the right and dodging cancellation from the left. - The New York Times

Major Publishers Sue Google Contending Unprecedented Copyright Infringement

A group of major publishers have filed a lawsuit against Google, accusing the company of illegally using millions of copyrighted books to help build its Gemini artificial intelligence models, in “one of the most prolific infringements of copyrighted materials in history”. - The Guardian

Ohio’s School Librarians Are Worried

“Proposed legislation to filter the reading choices students can make has brought concern, and budget reductions make some worry about the future of public school librarians. … ‘Right now, a lot of administrators and school boards look at having school librarians as a luxury,” said (union president) Gayle Schmuhl.” - Ohio Capital Journal

Revisiting Mark Twain In The Age Of Trump

Satire makes fun of something to expose its truth in a way that can be notoriously difficult to decode. What is often misread in Twain’s most famous novel is this: he satirically uses racism to ridicule racism. - Adi Magazine

US Publishers And Authors Sue Google Over Its Training Of AI

“Publisher Hachette Book Group, Cengage Learning, and Elsevier, as well as author Scott Turow, are the named plaintiffs in the lawsuit, … contending that the tech giant has engaged in widespread copyright infringement in developing its Gemini AI models.” - Publishers Weekly

A Punctuational Divide (We Need To Evolve)

Now that we can react to a friend’s needy text or an enemy’s infuriating post in real time and with minimal reflection, we need reliable substitutes for extraverbal cues more than ever.  - The Atlantic

The Fault Lines Of PEN America’s Support Of Free Speech

PEN America currently sits on a widening fault line, one that divides old-school liberalism, which treats the right to speak as more important than any particular ideology, from a surging and fiercely ideological left that sees Israel and Zionism as its enemy. - The Atlantic

Could We Stop Demonizing BookTok Now?

Last week’s New Yorker has a rather intense article on the uselessness of BookTok for real book discussion. This woman begs to differ. - BBC

Is TikTok Ruining Books, Or Publishing In General?

Personal testimony is paramount on BookTok; a book is deemed successful if it ‘breaks’ or ‘destroys’ a “reader. The most common book-review content on the app understands books as pleasure-spiking torment factories.” - The New Yorker

Sometimes Book To Movie Adaptations Don’t Work Out For The Author

But this one may become legendary. “Tomi Adeyemi, the author of the bestselling fantasy Children of Blood and Bone, isn’t planning to see the forthcoming film adaptation — even though she co-wrote it.” - Los Angeles Times (MSN)

Enjoying All Of The Agatha Christie Adaptations Out There?

Then you might want to read more Golden Age mysteries, including Josephine Tey (and not just Daughter of Time). - The New York Times

Meta Won’t Stop Going After The Author Of Careless People, Proving The Book’s Point Over And Over And Over Again

“The optics of the case speak louder than the niceties of any contract dispute. Those optics advance the narrative that Meta is a heartless and negative force determined to stifle the truth about its misdeeds.” (In other words, buy physical copies of the book.) - Wired

What In The Living Heck Happened To Decorated Historian Kerri Greenidge, And Her Most Famous Work?

“A major publisher appeared to pull a prizewinning history book about a prominent South Carolina slaveholding family and its role in the abolitionist movement, after several scholars accused the author of misleading readers” - and it looks like the historian lost her job at Tufts as well. - The New York Times

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