ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

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How 20th Century Literary Analysis Came To Be

In the prewar period, university professors were apt to make vague aesthetic judgments about a book’s “beauty” or “soul” before lobbing in a few comments about the author’s mother or the publishing practices of the time. Richards’s students, by contrast, were asked to exclude all such background blather. - The Guardian

Writing About Nature: Science Or Poetry?

Natural history can certainly accommodate a profusion of perspectives – indeed, it will always benefit from greater diversity in how we look and think. But I wonder if there are unhelpful dichotomies in play, where we pit ‘knowledge’ against lived experience, against emotional engagement... - Aeon

Man Threatened To Bomb Merriam-Webster For Changing Definitions Of Gender

He sent anonymous comments and messages to Merriam-Webster, which publishes a widely used online dictionary, condemning the company for changing the definitions of words including “boy, “girl” and “trans woman.” - The New York Times

For An Audiobook To Be Good, It Needs More Than A Good Narrator

While the good narrator (or narrators) is essential, truly good audiobooks also need the right atmosphere - and sometimes the right music. - NPR

Handwriting Has A Power That Computers Can Never Create

"When you’ve written something by hand, the only person who could have done it is you. It’s unmistakable you wrote this, touched it, laid hands and eyes upon it. Something written by hand is a piece of your personality on paper. Typed words are not a fair swap." - LitHub

The Australian Author Who Was This Close To Chucking It All For A Steady Job

Aaron Blabey "had been working a series of increasingly dissatisfying day jobs — from acting to advertising — and although his children’s books were 'warmly received' (as he put it), the earnings were not supporting his family." He gave himself an ultimatum. It worked. - The New York Times

A Book Tour By Bike Leaves An Author Feeling Very Fulfilled, And Optimistic Too

Indie bookstores are thriving. "During the lockdowns these small shops discovered how much they were valued by their customers; booksellers tell me about switching to mail order, doing deliveries by bike and on foot, setting up subscription schemes ... reinforcing personal relationships that have built up over years." - The Guardian (UK)

Jennifer Egan Loves Doing The Work To Promote Her Books

Why not, she says - there’s no reason not to work just as hard promoting your book as you did writing it. "The worst that can happen is you’ve spent a little energy on something that didn’t result in you being a bestseller." - Irish Times

Keeping Languages Alive Through Spelling Bees

For Alaskans whose people's languages are Yup'ik and Iñupiak, "the spelling bee gives students the opportunity to practice reading and writing a language they might only speak or hear." - Alaska Public Radio

How Do You Follow Up A Smash Hit First Novel?

You throw your second one in the (metaphorical) trash can, of course. - The Guardian (UK)

BookTok Is Driving A Rise In Book Purchasing At Stores And Shops Across The World

Sales rose 5% in the UK, for instance. BookTokkers, aka TikTok users, are "replicating the time-honoured sales method that bookshop staff have often employed – suggesting books to shoppers that they might like. And that’s one area that the pandemic hit hard." - The Guardian (UK)

“A Political Switzerland”: Is The New York Times Book Review’s “Books As News” Approach Still Tenable?

With Bookstagrammers and BookTokers nearly equal in influence, and with its carefully maintained approach of relative objectivity, "the Book Review may have the luxury of being the only game in town, but that doesn't spare it the responsibility of making sure people show up to play." - The Nation

What Researchers Are Learning About Language From Teaching AI

The difficulty in understanding transformers lies in their abstraction. Whereas a conventional program follows an understandable process, like outputting the word “grass” whenever it sees the word “green,” a transformer converts the word “green” into numbers and then multiplies them by certain values. - Nautilus

How Big Publishing Consolidated

As 2022 began, the U.S. trade publishing business was dominated by what has been called the Big Five—Simon & Schuster, Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Hachette Book Group, and Macmillan.  - Publishers Weekly

What Happens When Big Corporations Take Over Local Newspapers? A New Study Says —

— that there's "an immediate drop in content." The drop isn't exactly a surprise, but what one lead researcher found "shocking" was that the fall, and the staffing cuts that lead to it, happen so quickly after acquisition. - Nieman Lab

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