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Nobody in the format business seems to know what people want, which hasn’t stopped some from betting big. Disney’s plan for Generation Alpha runs through vertical microdramas — shortform clips engineered for a phone held upright (Variety). Netflix, which spent years insisting games were the natural extension of its storytelling, is closing gaming studios (Los Angeles Times).
The demand side keeps answering a different question. Four of Tana French’s novels made the Times’ 50 best thrillers of the century, more than any other writer (Irish Times). A bookstore in Oxford sells romantasy and nothing else, and is doing fine (NPR). A bookstore-slash-skate-shop next to Ballerina Farm can’t keep 1973 fly-fishing guides in stock (The Paris Review).
Even today’s literacy fix isn’t technological: read out loud, together, with full-throated yawps (The New York Times). And Apple may start paying publishers when Siri’s AI uses their work — pay-as-you-go attribution, which is more than most AI companies have put on the table (Nieman Lab).
New Bedford has a new Melville statue, and his sculptor would like you to know he was a smokeshow (Boston Globe).
All of our stories below.