ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

WORDS

I Come Not To Praise The Internet Novel

The internet, or more precisely, the smartphone, poses a problem for novels. If a contemporary novel wants to seem realistic, or true to life, it must incorporate the internet in some way, because most people spend their days immersed in it. - 3 Quarks Daily

The Private Equity Firm That Bought Simon & Schuster Is Giving Employees An Ownership Stake. A Head Of That Firm Explains Why.

Pete Stavros of KKR: "If you're managing teachers' pension money and you want to just raise everyone's salary, that's on the backs of teachers, which is not ethical, and it's not our money. So what can we do? Ownership is a way of trying to navigate to a win-win." - Yahoo! (Slate)

“Shadow Library” Or Piracy Site? Four Publishers Sue LibGen

"Cengage, Macmillan Learning, McGraw Hill and Pearson Education filed the suit against Library Genesis, also known as LibGen, in Manhattan federal court, citing 'extensive violations' of copyright law. LibGen operates a collection of different domains that allow users to search for and download pdf versions of books." - The Guardian

Amazon Will Limit Number Of Books Authors Can Upload To Combat AI Submissions

KDP said that, while it has not yet “seen a spike in our publishing numbers,” it is lowering the number of new titles users can update to the platform daily to three, “in order to help protect against abuse.” - Publishers Weekly

Red States Are Attacking America’s Oldest Library Association

The American Library Association is facing a partisan firefight unlike anything in its almost 150-year history. - Washington Post

How I Lost My Desire To Read

I blithely assumed reading would be mine to reclaim when the right moment arrived. But when I finally looked toward my bookshelves, I found that the desire to read had evaporated. Not a single title on my teetering to-be-read pile appealed. - Washington Post

It’s Nearly Autumn, And You Need A Cool Weather Reading List

Here are the National Book Award longlists to feed your ambition and your TBR pile (but not your bank account). - Washington Post

Don’t Scroll Or Flip Past That Epigraph, Authors Plead

Why not? "They create a vibe, a sense of what to expect from the story." - The New York Times

Long Before Hogwarts, There Was The Wizard School Of Diana Wynne Jones

"Jones’s work is galvanised by her respect for the children who read her books. They are warm, sardonic and, in places, unexpectedly elliptical." - The Guardian (UK)

Kazuo Ishiguro’s Next Book Will Be A Bunch of Song Lyrics

"The Summer We Crossed Europe in the Rain: Lyrics for Stacey Kent will be published on 7 March 2024 by Faber, featuring 16 sets of lyrics alongside specially commissioned illustrations by Italian artist Bianca Bagnarelli and an introduction by Ishiguro." - The Guardian

The Dangers Of Storytelling As A Learning Device

Historians have an increasingly strong incentive to tell dramatic stories which gain attention and make ‘impact’. But anyone in the business of reporting on reality - scholars, scientists, journalists - ought to be suspicious of narrative, even if they use it. - Ian Leslie

The Scrappy Independent Publisher That Established English As A Language Of Indian Literature

In 1958, P. Lal, Anita Desai, and other Kolkata writers who gathered in a Sunday-morning adda (a long, often serious discussion, very typically Bengali) founded the publisher still known as Writers Workshop, dedicated to Indian writing in English, which gave a start to many authors now famous worldwide. - Literary Hub

Badge Of Honor: Eight Writers Talk About What It Feels Like To Have Their Books Banned

"I find talking about the ridiculousness of the bans sometimes brings laughter, in the ways our people have learned to laugh to keep from crying. We do what we need to do: we resist, we inform, we amplify, we write.” - Harper's Bazaar

Argentine Police Make “Historic Seizure” Of Nazi Propaganda And Shutter Local Publisher

"Argentina's Federal Police shut down a publisher that sold books that praised Nazi ideology, seized hundreds of texts and arrested one person … during Tuesday's raids in the town of San Isidro, north of Buenos Aires." - AP

Does Studying A New Language Interfere With The Foreign Languages You’ve Already Learned?

"This is a frequent observation among multilinguals, that 'Languages can co-exist, but they tussle, as do siblings, over mental resources and attention,' as (language scientist Julie Sedivy) put it." Recent research put this observation to the test. - Psyche

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