ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

WORDS

Spotify Promoting Audiobooks Using Some Music Industry Techniques

Combined with the promo page and countdown clock, the feature allows authors to engage in fandom in a way that is more typical of music than publishing. It’ll launch in mid-April. - The Verge

Historical Fiction Is Hot Right Now. Why?

Can historical fiction even be considered a genre of its own? Its many varieties share few common attributes other than that they all take place in the past. Even the simplest qualities are hard to pin down: for instance, how far back do you have to go? - The Drift

Libraries Struggle to Afford Access To E-Books, Which Are More Expensive Than Paper

While one hardcover copy of a novel costs the library $18, it costs $55 to lease a digital copy — a price that can't be haggled with publishers. And for that, the e-book expires after a limited time, usually after one or two years, or after 26 checkouts, whichever comes first. - ABCNews

Publishing Should Not Rely On Gig Workers

"Look a little more closely, and ‘growing pool of freelancers’ is a terrible euphemism for ‘jobs are disappearing and more and more of us are fighting for scraps by competing for freelance gigs.’” - LitHub

What We Keep When We Death-Clean Our Shelves

"What is a home for if not to fill it with books? What would I do without them? I can’t get rid of these stories, even though I’ve internalized them. They’re part of me. They’re mine, and the physical reminder of that needs to be here, on the shelf.” - Reactor

The Gender Of Crossword Puzzles

"What kinds of intellectual work is considered worthy of our attention? What boxes have women historically been permitted to fill?” - The New York Times

The London Book Fair Map Shows Power’s Relationship To Geography

"Everything radiated outward from this central core across two carpeted floors, in diminishing order of importance: the slightly smaller publishing houses, then the ones whose best years are behind them, then the niche ones, then the flatly obscure." - The New York Times

Defining The Great American Novels

In setting out to identify that new American canon, we decided to define American as having first been published in the United States (or intended to be—read more in our entries on Lolita and The Bell Jar). And we narrowed our aperture to the past 100 years. - The Atlantic

How The Economist (The Economist?!) Is Pulling In Young Readers

It's with the app called Espresso, whose 2023 subscriber numbers were up 64% from 2022. Says marketing VP Nada Arnot, "It's a snack-size version if you will, but it's not in any way a diluted version. It's not a substitute to the core product." - Press Gazette (UK)

A First: JRR Tolkien Poetry To Be Published

“Poetry was the first way in which Tolkien expressed himself creatively and through it the seeds of his literary ambition would be sown." - The Bookseller

Irish Gaelic Is Actually Becoming Cool In Ireland

"Across Ireland, English is playing second fiddle to Irish in emerging arts scenes. Even though fewer than 2% of the population speak it daily, Irish is hip; the preferred language of young poets at bilingual spoken-word nights … and being blared out in metal, techno and hip-hop." - The Guardian

Attempts To Ban Library Books Hit New High In 2023

"(The American Library Association) announced that 4,240 works in school and public libraries had been targeted in 2023, a substantial hike from the then-record 2,571 books in 2022. … The number of separate challenges (is slightly down), ... but efforts to censor (multiple) books at a time have surged in Florida and Texas." - AP

The Guernica Magazine Mess – An Essay About The Israel Military Action Roils Staff

The magazine, once a prominent publication for fiction, poetry, and literary nonfiction, with a focus on global art and politics, quickly found itself imploding as its all-volunteer staff revolted over the essay. - The Atlantic (MSN)

Should Crossword Puzzles Test Our Knowledge? No, They Should Expand It

While women played key roles in the development of crosswords in the US, by the late 20th-century, puzzle-constructing was dominated by college-educated white guys, and clues reflected that. Today the puzzling world, gradually becoming more diverse, can help create a common cultural vocabulary in a diverse society. - The Atlantic (MSN)

Gabriel García Márquez Didn’t Want His Last Book Published. This Week It Was. Is That OK?

The novel was published this week, unleashing a backlash from scholars, writers and fans who’ve taken exception not with the novel itself, but rather with what they see as an act of betrayal that endangers García Márquez’s legacy. - The New York Times

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