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AI Translations Have Gotten Very Good. But…

While AI translations are very fluent, fluency doesn’t equal accuracy. Even proficient bilinguals can overlook errors hidden under the surface. - The Conversation

Russia’s Last Major Independent Newspaper Shuts Down

“’We have been killed,’ reads a statement from the editorial team behind the Russian independent news outlet Novaya Gazeta, as it announced on Friday that it would be ceasing operations. … ‘The newspaper no longer exists. The Russian authorities and the Russian security services have forced our editorial team to cease its operations.’” - Euronews

UK’s Collins Dictionary Chooses “Mogging” As Word Of The Year (What’s Mogging?)

“The copywriter Rachel Quin said the term describes making someone or something look inferior in terms of appearance, confidence or status. Believed to originate as a shortening of ‘AMOG’ (alpha male of the group), the word had first appeared in bodybuilding culture around 2016 before spreading through online communities.” - The Guardian

The Enduring Appeal Of Literary Locations

Hotels are particularly adaptable settings for fiction. They bring strangers together in temporary communities, creating opportunities for encounters, misunderstandings and suspicion. In detective fiction, they can also provide a ready-made sense of enclosure: a place where characters are brought together and escape becomes difficult. - The Conversation

Oldest Recording Of Someone Speaking Creole Was Discovered

“The moment I heard these recordings, I knew that they would drastically change our understanding of this language,” Dr. Mayeux said. His research findings were published in the journal “Language Documentation and Description.” - The New York Times

AI Has Thrown The Publishing World Into Chaos

Book publishing houses have also been inundated with AI writing, and the industry is scrambling to respond. “There is a high level of concern and I think maybe anxiety among editors,” Friedman said. “They’re not sure how to detect it.” - WNG

Serial Fiction Is Having A Moment. Again.

“'Today’s newspapers have fallen out of the habit of rewarding their readers with chunks of fiction. ... So it has fallen to us to pick up the slack.' But it seems worth asking why 'chunks' of fiction are their own reward." - LitHub

This Is How A Publishing Season’s ‘Big’ Cookbooks Come To Life

For instance: "You wouldn’t know it, but some of these dishes were shot on the literal ground." - Best Food Blog

The Dark Underbelly Exposed When One Author Wrote Back To His AI Spammers

The scammer "gave me a physical address. Neither of us commented on how unusual it was for the founder of the Berlin Book Club to have a postal address in the Philippines." - The Guardian (UK)

How To Write Fictional AI In An Age Of Tech Bros

"Silicon Valley has become adept at repurposing science fiction as building blocks of its fantastical hype machine. When authors try to imagine a future in which machines have thoughts and feelings, their work instantly seems to get woven into a tapestry of bullshit." - Happy Dancing

How Is It That All Books Have Suddenly Become ‘Gothic’?

It's not just Spooky Season. "The Gothic label, once applied primarily to horror and dark romance, has been used to describe space operas, literary works and fantastical hybrids of all kinds." - The New York Times

The Queen Of Fairy Smut, With A New Book And Loads Of Merch, Rises Again

"Maas hysteria gripped the Bell House in the hours before the book dropped. Fans traded conspiracy theories about future plot twists, got temporary tattoos and face paint, drank themed cocktails, posed for photos behind a giant cauldron and bought branded candles, bag charms and other memorabilia." - The New York Times

This Is How Users Are Dealing With AO3 Going Down

It's ... intense. "Fans are compiling Google Docs of links to downloaded stories, touting them as 'survival guides' for the 'AO3 apocalypse' and organizing them by fictional character pairings, or ships." - Wired

The Internet’s Most Wide-Open Site For Fan Fiction Goes Down After A Security Breach

Archive of Our Own, or AO3 as it's known to many of its millions of users, may be down for up to a month. "A surge in traffic to archived versions of the site now 'putting a heavy load on the Wayback Machine.'" - The New York Times

Horror Books And Bookstores Are Proliferating

Horror book sales are up 39 percent this year over last, according to Circana BookScan. The market is growing: 5.1 million books were sold in 2025, up from 3.2 million in 2021. - The New York Times

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