Taking Alex Ross’ 2007 book “The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century” as a model, Frank’s book makes the case for what, exactly, a 20th century novel is, what its authors’ methods and goals were, and how the unprecedented events of an ever more interconnected world shaped it. - Los Angeles Times
Spiegelworld, an entertainment and circus company based in Las Vegas, bought the entire town in 2022 for $2.5m. This isolated plot of land, roughly an hour’s drive from Vegas and the same distance from the nearest grocery store, is now known as Spiegelworld’s “global headquarters” or, more simply, the “circus town”. - The Guardian
Visual artists in the UK take home a median annual salary of only £12,500 a year, a 40% decrease since 2010, a new survey commissioned by the Design & Artists Copyright Society (DACS) has found. - The Art Newspaper
The auction market "continues to sag behind its 2022 sales records, when a pent-up supply of masterpieces during the pandemic pushed the fall sales to $3.2 billion." - The New York Times
Spines, founded in 2021 but which published its first titles this year, is a startup technology business which—for a fee—is offering the use of AI to proofread, produce, publish and distribute books. - The Bookseller
In Spain, regional governments are responsible for disaster management, including heritage protection. The co-operation between the central government and Valencia’s to respond to the catastrophe has come under heavy scrutiny, with accusations of negligence on both sides. - The Art Newspaper
Michèle Roberts, author of French Cooking for One, says, “Writing a recipe is very close to writing a poem, which is about choosing words and ingredients and things. The right thing in the right place and so on, the time, the narrative.” - Vittles
France? Sure, France published the book. But, the book’s author says, “I’m told that there was interest from various international publishers at the recent Frankfurt book fair, but there was concern over possible legal consequences.” - The Observer (UK)
"For many years, Google’s sprawling empire has faced little legal scrutiny, allowing the company to freely build up its search engine, browser, operating systems, and line of hardware products that all intersect to bolster one another.” But all empires must fall. - The Verge
“I’d always been curious about ballet,” says one woman who started taking classes “after a major life shift.” She’s far from alone. - Los Angeles Times
Aside from the many, many collaborations with playwright Pinter, “her influence on BBC design work, ‘a slightly crazy mix of boarding-school perfectionism and free-spirited iconoclasm,' was baked in.” - The Guardian (UK)
Both movies tell similar stories. And both arrived on the same day, "at a moment when stories of crumbling empires plundered by deceitful despots feel distinctly apropos.” - Slate
