The government says it is cancelling the VAT on books, one of the highest in the world, — despite the estimated loss of €44 million ($51.5 million) in tax revenue — to combat a growing “reading crisis.” Literacy statistics from the OECD indicate that one-quarter of Danish 15-year-olds cannot read and understand a simple text. - Euronews
"I'm begging you to just try and learn something that isn't from Facebook, Fox, or Newsmax," Valeen, a 38-year-old registered Democrat who works as a pet sitter in Denver, wrote to her dad via Instagram DM after they exchanged a series of posts about Gaza. - Wired
In 2023, our book was one of thousands pulled from library shelves around the country, and as we write, an evolving legal strategy being used to defend many such bans threatens to upend decades of precedent preserving the right to read. - The Atlantic (MSN)
“Researchers at the University of Florida and University College London have found that between 2003 and 2023, daily reading for reasons other than work and study fell by about 3% each year. The number saw a peak in 2004, with 28% of people qualifying, before falling to 16% in 2023.” - The Guardian
The unnerving thing is that now, with hundreds of millions of people regularly engaging with chatbots, English-speaking humans are starting to talk like the inhuman communicator on the other side. - Washington Post
The scrolls come from a small Mongolian shrine found by an expedition in 1927. Researchers are virtually unrolling and deciphering them using X-ray tomography, the same technique used with the Herculaneum Scrolls, which were carbonized in the volcanic eruption which destroyed Pompeii. - Artnet
“(There’s) a new effort from Riverhead Books, led by editor Han Zhang, to publish more translated Chinese language literature. … The books that Zhang is looking to publish aren't aiming to be sweeping classics. But they're small looks into contemporary Chinese life.” - NPR
There are book carts organized by United Airlines in Boston, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Virginia and more; Little Free Libraries in Seattle and Providence, Rhode Island, and “Flybrary” shelves in Punta Gorda, Florida, Traverse City, Michigan, and Redmond, Oregon. - Washington Post
US public schools still require that kids be taught handwriting, so it’s not yet a lost art, but there is some evidence that digital natives are less “ready” for writing now than students in the past. - Wired
The lawsuit was brought by some of the nation's largest book publishers and some of the authors whose books had been removed from central Florida school libraries, as well as the parents of schoolchildren who tried to access books that were removed. - Scripps
The standard 800-word, single-title review has long been an anemic, disparaged creature surviving off scraps along the edges of the features pages. - Washington Post
Organizers have decided to “pause” the Polari Prizes after multiple nominees and two judges withdrew in objection to the inclusion on the longlist of the novel Earth by John Boyne, who once wrote an article supporting the controversial views on transsexuality of J.K. Rowling. - BBC (MSN)
“Skibidi”, “tradwife” and “delulu” are among the new words to have made this year’s Cambridge Dictionary in a selection that confirms the increasing influence of the TikTok generation on the English language. - The Guardian
Sure, there’s Twlight fan fiction and Huck Finn fan fiction, Murderbot fanfic and Star Trek and etc. But there’s an awful lot of Biblical fanfic out there too, if that’s to your taste. - NPR
