Stories

This Booker-Winning Book Set In Taiwan Has Sparked A Cultural Reckoning

The author says she “wanted to tell Taiwanese people, ‘We do not really understand our own land’s history,’” partly because of the time Taiwan was a colony of Japan. - NPR

From Nearly Forgotten Author To Japanese Literary Hero

“Much of the Japanese fiction translated into English fits into broad categories – cats, crime, coffee shops – but one surprise bestseller stands alone. Sales of books by Osamu Dazai, who killed himself in 1948 aged 38, have rocketed in the last few years.” - The Guardian (UK)

A High-Quality Bootleg Of ‘The Odyssey’ Leaked And Streamed For Hours On X

A message on X (Twitter) “included a high-quality version of the film, as confirmed by Variety, and climbed to over 2.1 million views within two and a half hours.” - Variety

Alert: Don’t Throw Away Your Old E-Reader

Of course don’t throw it away - get it to an e-waste recycler or dealer - but also, you can turn it into a Spotify controller or, perhaps coolest of all, a literary clock. - Wired

The Perfect Books For A Summer At The Pool, The River, Or The Beach

“It is important to follow a balanced diet on holiday. … You need to be able to chop and change depending on your mood, which means fiction and nonfiction. And finally, you need to be able to throw all of these rules out of the window.” - The Guardian (UK)

Blame Social Media, But First Of All Phones, For Everything Turning Vertical

“Short-form, vertical video has effectively won the internet. Business is booming, and viewers show no sign of tuning out.” - The Verge

Kenneth Branagh Returns To The Site Of His First Grand Success

“His time in Stratford was professionally formative, but rocky. Branagh tangled with the management over workloads and pay, and eventually felt that he had to move on to flourish.” That worked out pretty well for him, too. - The New York Times

In London, Museum Workers Want The Right To Carry Water During Heat Waves

The workers at V&A are unionized, and the ballot “is taking place because of concerns about soaring temperatures and access to drinking water, along with pay and conditions.” - The Guardian (UK)

Advocates For The Board Game Monopoly Say People Only Hate It Because We All Play It Wrong

Seriously, we just have to read the rules (or so they say). - Slate

The Group Memorializing George Floyd Protest Murals Is In Financial Straits

“Amid the pain and protest following George Floyd’s murder by police in 2020, artists known and unknown picked up brushes and spray cans. They created hundreds of murals on 4x8-foot plywood sheets covering windows and doors.” - MPR

Who Knew Loki Would Turn Out To Be A Classicist?

“It was very clear from the word go that his heart was in classics, and it became clear fairly quickly to me that he really loved Greek tragedy, and that is a nice bridge to his acting career.” - The New York Times

How A Romare Bearden Collage Inspired One Of August Wilson’s Best Plays

Wilson “discovered Bearden in 1977, when The Prevalence of Ritual, a 1964 series of Bearden’s collages collected in a volume, captured his attention.” - The New York Times

It’s Been A Year Since Trump Defunded Public Media

How is public media surviving? Rural stations are - perhaps ironically - hardest hit by the federal defunding. - NPR

How A Classic Miyazaki Film Can Help In Troubled Times

“Optimism has gone from seeming like a novelty—a trait my less medicated friends had managed to cultivate under circumstances and genetics unfamiliar to me and my ilk—to something more sinister. Optimism feels like ignorance.” - Reactor

The Philadelphia Museum Of Art Is Running Record Deficits

“The museum is covering the deficits by drawing on a pool of money that includes cash and reserves — sometimes referred to as quasi-endowment — whose use was not restricted by donors for any specific purpose.” - Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)

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