The mailroom was out of control. Employees helped themselves to books, telephone calls to Hong Kong, extra sandwiches during press week. They had a softball team. My duties included babysitting for the publisher’s assistant’s children. - LitHub
"His novels alternate restlessly from an East Africa of the past to the Britain of the present, as if they comprise two parts of a puzzle — parts that do not quite fit — that it will take a lifetime of writing to solve." - The New Republic
"The Orwell Foundation is set to launch Orwell Daily ... with the writer's memoir Down and Out in Paris and London. ... Subscribers to the newsletter will receive around 1,000 to 1,500 words of the book each day. The extracts are led by the original chapters." - The Guardian
Utah parents have filed hundreds of requests to remove specific titles from K-12 libraries since a new law took effect in May banning “pornographic or indecent” books in schools. - Salt Lake Tribune
"Anna Pasternak claimed seven chapters in Lara Prescott's (novel), The Secrets We Kept, copied elements from her own book Lara, a 2016 biography of her great uncle's lover Olga Ivinskaya," the inspiration for Lara in Doctor Zhivago. (Anna Pasternak did not read Prescott's book before bringing the suit.) - The Guardian
Enheduanna, the daughter of King Sargon, founder of the Akkadian Empire, played perhaps the leading role in consolidating the religion of conquered Sumer with that of Akkad; her surviving work includes 42 hymns to the goddess Ishtar/Inanna and three freestanding poems. - BBC
‘Kiow’ and ‘Kiou’ seemed to be the most common terms in the 18th century, while ‘Kief’ was the most popular word at the turn of the 19th century, was still common towards the end of the century, and at the turn of the 20th was in competition, so to speak, with ‘Kieff’ and ‘Kiev’. - 3 Quarks Daily
This word substitution – and thousands like it – suggests that our mental dictionaries link words with related meanings. In other words, semantic connections can influence speech errors. - The Conversation
"In honor of the 100th anniversary of the publication of 'The Waste Land,' we invited four writers and academics — Beci Carver, Jahan Ramazani, Robert Crawford, and David Barnes — to discuss the importance, context, artistry, and legacy of the poem." - Literary Hub
Alok A. Khorana: "When I first read the poem, I was puzzled by the structure ... because it felt strangely familiar. ... The entire poem seemed to me structured like an Upanishad." This, it turns out, is not happenstance: Eliot knew those Sanskrit texts well. - Literary Hub
There are old books and there are old books. Sometimes opening one that I have innocently purchased for 3.99 plus postage can feel like I’ve inhaled enough mold spores to start growing a very large inner book colony. - 3 Quarks Daily
Or, if you like horror books, then it's also Hanukkah and Christmas and Solstice and Valentine's Day rolled up into one in Louisville, where Butcher Cabin Books sports (fake) blood over its entire façade as well. - NPR
Even though she's famous for memoir and novels of country life, she says, "I do not miss the deference which was shown to people in authority. That, I feel, led to the creation of megalomaniacs." - Irish Times
Memoirist Mary Karr (The Liars Club, Cherry, Lit) says, "Memory is a pinball in a machine—it messily ricochets around between image, idea, fragments of scenes, stories you’ve heard. Then the machine goes tilt and snaps off." - LitHub
Shehan Karunatilaka, who won for his book The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, wrote on Instagram and Facebook, "The book took seven years to write, with countless hours of research, craft and hard work poured into it." - The Guardian (UK)
