ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

WORDS

A New Study Says Literary Snobs Are Right

In short, reading literary fiction seems to give readers a more complex worldview. - LitHub

Libraries Are Digitizing And Something’s Being Lost

Many institutions have moved, or are on the verge of moving, significant portions of their collections off-site. Some are embarking on large-scale book de-accessioning projects, a process by which books are removed permanently from a collection. - The Walrus

Why Do Writers Write?

There is often something compulsive about the act of writing, as if to cast out invasive thoughts. - The Paris Review

The Most Unlikely Literary Rediscovery Ever?  “Don Quixote” In Sanskrit

The 1937 translation was commissioned two years previously by wealthy American accounting executive Carl Tilden Keller, who already had versions of Cervantes's novel in Icelandic, Japanese, and Mongolian. The translators were two Kashmiri pandits who knew no Spanish and worked from an 18th-century English version. - The Guardian

How Is It A Century-Old Book On Prose Is Still Popular?

Nearly a century old, it’s still avidly read and discussed in MFA circles, thanks to its author’s meticulous dissection of the devices of fiction, likely more valuable than any of the most recent craft books on the shelves.  - LA Review of Books

Librarians Get Trapped, And Even Targeted, In The Culture Wars

"Accustomed to being seen as dedicated public servants in their communities, (they) have found themselves … labeled pedophiles on social media, called out by local politicians and reported to law enforcement officials." - The New York Times

UK Schools Delete Irish Writers In Bid To Diversify Curriculum

Irish writers have been dropped from the exam curriculum in British schools in favour of writers from more diverse backgrounds. Poets Seamus Heaney and Eavan Boland and playwright Brian Friel have been removed from both the GCSE and A-levels curriculums. - Irish Times

The “Insignificant” Details That Bring Historical Writing Alive

As a writer, the key is not so much assembling reams and reams of material, but finding the details that make a period or situation vivid for you and, eventually, for the reader – those few facts which make a sprawling and multi-faceted topic specific enough to relate to and empathise with. - The Conversation

Women From Trinidad Like Monique Roffey Are Reinvigorating Caribbean Literature

Roffey's The Mermaid of Black Conch "joins an impressive wave of recent books by Trinidadian women writers, including Ingrid Persaud's Love After Love and Ayanna Lloyd Banwo's When We Were Birds, which are helping redefine a literature once dominated by noisy men." - Yahoo! (Los Angeles Times)

A Great Writer/Editor Partnership: Robert Caro And Robert Gottleib

When Caro was almost finished with “The Power Broker,” he got an agent, Lynn Nesbit, and she matched him up with Gottlieb. If there is any enmity between Caro and Gottlieb, it would seem to be a remnant of Caro’s pain at the amount of material Gottlieb cut from “The Power Broker.” - The New Yorker

Some Of The World’s Best Authors Have Written Books Which Won’t Be Published For 100 Years. Why?

Every year since 2014 a prominent writer to submit a manuscript, and the commissioning will continue until 2113. Then, a century after the project began, they will all finally be published. - BBC

TikTok Is Now An Integral Part Of The Book Market

"Early last year, the publishing industry noticed that books readers gushed about on TikTok were showing up on bestseller lists. ... A year later, #BookTok has become a powerful force in the world of books, helping to create some of the biggest sellers on the market." - The New York Times

The US Has Lost 360 Newspapers Since 2019

"That is on top of the 2,500 closures since 2004 documented in earlier reports. The result is even more 'news deserts' in poorer and rural communities and a growing split between haves and have-nots in access to local news." - Poynter

The Poetry Of Marilyn Monroe

She wrote poetry regularly, though she never published any of it. Sure, she was no Marianne Moore, but there's real thought and feeling in her verse. As her friend Norman Rosten put it, "She had the instinct and reflexes of the poet, but she lacked the control." - The Paris Review

What Print Books Are In A Time Of Digital Dominance

Perhaps the term “antiquarian,” which traditionally referred to old, valuable books, often first editions and manuscripts, now seems to me to apply to all books. Books, by definition, have become, if not antiquarian, antiquated in their material form. They have become artifacts.  - The Smart Set

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