ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

WORDS

Branding Your Literary Favorites

Is it the ultimate pairing of the lowbrow (baseball cap) and the highbrow (literature)? Or is it wearing books as one might wear cult fashion labels — and the uncanny performance of it all? Does it matter? - The New York Times

“An Aesthetic Of Disobedience” — Oscar Wilde As Critic

As he wrote in "The Soul of Man Under Socialism," "Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion." - The Nation

Shirley Jackson’s Horror Fiction As Grief Therapy

"A common trope in horror is that the character being haunted, possessed, or hunted is going through a personal agony — one that either helps them rise above the evil or destroys them altogether. … Grief cannot — should not — be sugar-coated. So we come to scary movies and books to relate." - Literary Hub

Why Literary Fiction Might Be Dead

Literary fiction might be dead. More precisely, what might have died is literary fiction as a meaningful category in publishing and bookselling. - The Nation

The American Library System Is Under Attack, And Not Just By Right-Wing Censors

"Book bans are at record levels, and libraries across the country are facing catastrophic budget cuts. … In a separate line of attack, library collections are being squeezed by draconian licensing deals, and even sued to stop lending digitized books." - The Guardian

Words Aren’t Merely Words. Context Matters, And Words Processed By Machines Are Changed

We are at a moment of disjunction in the history of reading, driven by a technological shift that already seems to be as consequential as the birth of the printing press, a shift whose magnitude was already present to me 15 years ago when I had my dizzying encounter with my own text. - Tablet

How Paperback Publishing Helped The US Win WWII

"The paperbacks were intended to help soldiers pass the time. But they were also meant to remind them what they were fighting for, and draw a sharp contrast between American ideals and Nazi book burnings." - The New York Times

How A Tiny, Newish Bay Area Publisher Snagged The Nobel Prizewinner’s Books

Of course, Jon Fosse hadn't won when Transit Books got its start. - Los Angeles Times

Balanchine Biography On British Prize Short List

One judge on the 784-page Mr. B: George Balanchine’s Twentieth Century, by Jennifer Homans: "I’m hopeless on the dancefloor, ... but this book takes you in. It’s a story of the 20th century." - The Guardian (UK)

Literary Folks In New York Want Books To Get So Much Sexier

Literary books, that is (guessing most of them don't know much about the open door, spicy romance subgenre). - Vulture

Irish Writers Like Colm Toibin Share In The AI Training Disgust

Poet Vona Groarke: "I think my voice is being appropriated, my life, in a strange way, I fear, is also being appropriated, my sensitivity, my sensibility." - Irish Times

Hong Kong Man Sentenced To Prison For Importing Children’s Books

"The books feature sheep that lived in a village and had to defend themselves against wolves. In the series of books, the sheep take action such as going on strike or escaping by boat." - Seattle Times (AP)

The Loneliness, And Creativity, Of Zora Neale Hurston

The writer "was able to form an entire worldview out of her own pain of isolation." - LitHub

Scrivener Is For Newbies

Ann Patchett is still using WordPerfect - and why not? It's worked so far. - The New York Times

Michael Lewis At A Crossroads?

What happens when a writer who is used to rapturous reception, with a knack for shaping stories, collides with an active public drama he doesn’t control? - The New York Times

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