"Books are now published in numbers so vast that the writing of one can no longer be presumed to be an act of communication between writer and reader. Yet even books that aren’t read, and stand little chance of ever being read, can have their value." - LitHub
A 68-year-old retiree in Seymour, Indiana was a regular visitor to his local branch library and had become friendly with some employees there. In November, he brought a political poem he had written to give to a staffer he thought might like it; the person wasn't in that day, so he left the poem at the circulation desk. He...
A book critic considers. "Relative to the amount of space it takes up in the collective and capitalist imagination, the internet has had less of an impact on contemporary fiction than one might expect. It is increasingly acknowledged in novels, but it seems oddly difficult to represent well. I don’t know whether that’s because most of us have been...
At least, that's what one emoji-loving CEO proposes. "Millennials and post-millennials now make up at least 65% of the workforce in the U.S. Emojis are an essential part of how most of this generation communicates in their personal life. Businesses typically view communication skills as highly valuable in employees, so why suppress such an important tool?" Ah. Side-eye surprised...
Who could put it better than this? "There is much to learn within the pages of the so-called bonkbuster – and, no, not all of it is about sex." - The Observer (UK)
Perhaps some of it might be found in erasure. "Sometimes when it’s hard to write, that constraint gives you a place to start. It’s a bit like a painter working with a limited palette: You have both a solid foundation from which to begin your poem, and the challenge to create something using only what you have in front...
Rent a bookstore for a date. Yes, an entire bookstore. "The experience is BYOB (and food), but the store provides candles—and, of course, exclusive browsing access. What better way to get to know someone that by judging their taste in books?" - LitHub
It's pretty great, honestly. Ask Angie Thomas. "Had you told little Angie that 20-something years ago, she wouldn’t have believed she wrote something that made it that far — that this little Black girl in Mississippi whose family sometimes didn’t know if they would have food would have a book in the White House." - The New York Times
Mary-Kay Wilmers was one of LRB's co-founders in 1979, and after co-editing it since 1988 became sole editor in 1992. Two women will take over: "Wilmers will continue at the paper as consulting editor, with the LRB’s deputy editor Jean McNicol and senior editor Alice Spawls succeeding her." - The Guardian (UK)
Brian Lin: "At the start of the pandemic, I emailed friends, colleagues, and mentors, all POC, to ask two questions about their literary lives. What is a recurring situation that’s destabilizing and hard to navigate? What guidance would you offer a fellow person of color for navigating such situations?" - Los Angeles Review of Books
The word for pandemic is absolutely Greek, but nearly everything else the Greeks discuss about COVID-19 is English - and a leading linguist is worried. "Far too many are entering spoken and written Greek. On the television you hear phrases such as ‘rapid tests are being conducted via drive-through’, and almost all the words are English. It’s as...
Bernadine Evaristo, author of 2019's Booker prizewinning Girl, Woman, Other, is launching, or relaunching, a series of Black British novels that didn't quite make it into the British canon. "Our appreciation of literature is deepened when we understand the foundations from which each new generation creates literature anew, but because so much of the body of black British literature...
"The danger of Trump using a presidential library to burnish his image is far more serious, with the ex-president and his surrogates still promoting the idea that his electoral loss was somehow fraudulent. That creates an ongoing uncertainty in American public life, which Trump and even more unscrupulous actors will use to further division, inflame tension, exacerbate racism and...
"Mary-Kay Wilmers … was one of the founders of the literary magazine in 1979, along with Karl Miller and Susannah Clapp, became co-editor in 1988, and has been its sole editor since 1992. In 2019, when the LRB celebrated its 40th anniversary, she was dubbed 'Britain's most influential editor' by the New York Times." - The Guardian
