Teaching people to read and building a world where they can do so are different problems. Throwing our phones in the lake can’t bring about that world, but designing the conditions for reading will. - The New York Times
Sarah Wynn-Williams, whose bestselling memoir, Careless People, details her years working at Facebook, was due to appear in conversation with the investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr and academic Tim Wu. Instead, Wynn-Williams sat on stage for the hour-long discussion without speaking or responding. She was unable even to nod or shake her head. - The Gaurdian
It’s not about the phones. Instead, as a society, we have to remove structural barriers - and build new libraries. "A democracy needs its people to read, and it is society’s job to make that possible.” - The New York Times
“You take yourself with you, right? The image becomes mirrored: Who you were and what you took from a book the first time is reflected in who you are and what you take from the book now.” - Reactor Mag
Lawrence Ferlinghetti explained, years ago, that “‘Howl’ knocked the sides out of things, just the way rock music in the '60s knocked the sides out of the old music world.” - NPR
“Williams is rarely spotted without a book in his hand. He’s now name-checked multiple Joan Didion titles in interviews, and was once photographed next to a copy of Knausgaard’s My Struggle. His personal motto comes from Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables.” And his selections sell very well. - LitHub
“Under the totalitarian Age-Appropriate Materials Act — a Tennessee law passed in 2022 that, along with an addendum passed two years later, has permitted the removal of hundreds of books from libraries throughout the state — the Knox County school district recently ordered the removal of Alex Haley’s novel.” - Salon
“If you work on a book for twenty years—whatever we mean by work—people really act like you’re very neurotic. Like there’s something wrong with you, or you’re doing something wrong—and it’s easy to internalize that.” - Paris Review
Sure, there are some other languages whose speakers have spelling contests, but there are plenty — Italian, Finnish, Malay, etc. — whose words are spelled exactly as they’re pronounced. But English? In what other language could “ough” be pronounced eight different ways, depending on the word? - The New York Times Magazine
The book-publishing industry had already been wrestling with the prospect of a flood of AI-authored texts in the fiction market, and now the Rosenbaum scandal was showing the way AI could blow a hole in the nonfiction sector, too. - New York Magazine
Spotify announced that the total number of hours of audiobooks listened to on the service are up 60% year-over-year, with one million people having paid for Audiobooks+, an add-on launched last year that allows listeners to unlock additional hours of audiobooks on top of those already included with its premium service. - Publishers Weekly
“Five public library organizations from the U.S. and Canada … (are urging) publishers to negotiate usage-based e-book lending models as well as perpetual-use options.” The director of one of the organizations warned that e-book costs have “become unsustainable, and for many small libraries, impossible.” - Publishers Weekly
“Knox County Schools Superintendent Jon Rysewyk said the district will return the (Pulitzer-winning) 1976 novel to school library shelves, walking back a decision that (led to) … weeks of community backlash, board member pressure, and statewide criticism.” - Tennessee Lookout
One can learn quite a bit by noticing which English words and phrases had no Cherokee equivalent — and in how translators chose to render those words and phrases in Cherokee. - The Conversation
While TikTok’s stunted critical language sells legions more books—even good ones—than the literary critics who dismiss the platform, as a doubtfully salable fiction writer I’m less interested in how a book goes viral than in what this costs the reader. - The Point
