Since all reading at that time occurred out loud rather than inside one’s head, the study rooms were a modern librarian’s nightmare: no one seemed to understand the requirement to shush. Silent reading, when it eventually arrived, seemed highly suspect and slightly sneaky. - The Guardian
In fact, there's mainly one big difference between them and any other pop group you might know - all 11 members are virtual characters. Non-humans, hyper-real avatars made with artificial intelligence. - BBC
The report shows a drop in the proportion of full-time authors from 40% of those surveyed in 2006 to just 19% today. This shows that we cannot keep relying on the assumption that people will find money from elsewhere to sustain their writing: many are leaving the profession. - The Guardian
Difficult conversations about intention, taste, and editing are vital for the sake of developing successful new work. With focused training, and subsequent appropriate delivery happening on both sides of the studio, these imperative, complex exchanges seem all the more feasible. - Gramilano
According to industry magazine the Bookseller, hardback sales of celebrity autobiographies are down compared to last year, when titles by Billy Connolly, Bob Mortimer and Dave Grohl all sold more than 100,000 copies in the period from August to November. - The Guardian
There is something universally cheery and comforting about the phrase “oldest ever winner” – designed to put a glint in the middle-aged eye and send lapsed artists everywhere rifling through drawers for their box of watercolours. - The Guardian
“People often think about taste as being really individual,. But in the social sciences we say: ‘Ah, that’s not really true.’ Your tastes are part of a broader social patterning that extends beyond you.” - The Guardian
If you have listened to pop music at all in the past few years, you may have noticed that something is missing. The bridge – that part of the song where verse and chorus give way to an alternate section that ramps up the tension (or the fun) – is seemingly on the wane. - The Guardian
The era upended the world as these men and women knew it, both scientifically and socially, and they heatedly debated how to reconceptualize their discipline in light of discoveries about subatomic particles and their probabilistic behaviors. - The Wall Street Journal
The Caribbean-English artist Ryan, who is 66 years old, is the second Black woman and the oldest artist to ever win the prize, which comes with a monetary award of £25,000 (~$30,594). But for many, the artist may not be a household name. - Hyperallergic
These books are deliberately, self-consciously challenging, in content and in form. They are also hard, beautiful, powerful, and brilliant. That account of their greatness and difficulty—they are great because they are difficult, and difficult because they are great—is a story that was itself invented. - Boston Review
I can’t help but think that the artwork people are photographing in museums is falling on myopic eyes. Museumgoers are increasingly regarding the work they find in art museums as an accoutrement to their existence, to their world. - Hyperallergic
What does content creation look like during a cost-of-living crisis, when more and more people are shut out of the lifestyle that luxury influencers flaunt? And how will brands, agencies, and creators themselves navigate this changing landscape? - Wired
Every art lover, Blake Gopnik included, is aghast at the potential damage to cultural treasures. But he's also aghast at the damage being wreaked upon the world. These works of art may not deserve to be attacked by climate activists, Gopnik says, but perhaps that's not true of all of them. - NPR
