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Federal Judge In Florida Rules That First Amendment Doesn’t Forbid Libraries From Removing Certain Books

The suit in question concerned the Escambia County (Pensacola) School Board’s decision to block its libraries from stocking And Tango Makes Three, the well-known children’s book about the male penguin couple who raised a chick together at New York’s Central Park Zoo. - WUSF (Tampa)

Wild At Heart: Daphne Du Maurier, One Of English Lit’s Most Misunderstood Authors

“From the pages of After Midnight emerges a sense of du Maurier that’s far from the meek, naive narrator of Rebecca. These stories are the work of a protean, restless, and rather dangerous spirit with a decidedly pagan bent and a craving for solitude” — as well as a decided ambivalence about gender and sexuality. - Slate (Yahoo!)

This Year’s Most-Anticipated Book Started As FanFic And Has A Movie Deal

SenLinYu, 34, started off writing Harry Potter fanfiction that blew up online during the pandemic, racking up more than 20m downloads. Sen’s Draco and Hermione (“Dramione”) fanfic, heavily inspired by The Handmaid’s Tale, has now been rewritten – with third-party IP necessarily removed – and published traditionally as Alchemised. - The Guardian

Big Publishing’s Gambling Problem

Because the majority of books don’t earn out, most people in publishing have the disappointing experience of working on a book they love that, for whatever reason, didn’t hit: “If you’re a fair person, you know it’s not the author’s fault. It’s just the realities of a very difficult market.” - The Walrus

Stephen King Says He’s Now The Most Banned Author In The United States

"I am now the most banned author in the United States — 87 books," he tweeted. "May I suggest you pick up one of them and see what all the pissing & moaning is about? Self-righteous book banners don't always get to have their way. This is still America, dammit." - Newsweek

The Literary Biography Is Thriving

"As I enter my fifth decade in the genre, I’m happy to number the brilliant younger biographers whose careers I’m following in the dozens." - LitHub

Rebuilding Cultural Identity, Through Film And Words, In Zimbabwe

Tstisi Dangarembga, novelist and filmmaker: “We are never completely free; we have moments of freedom. Freedom is a desire. Achieving it requires us to move towards it.” - El País English

A New Virginia Woolf Book Is Coming Out, Merely 84 Years After Her Death

Hurray for research! “The archivist led her into a reading room and handed her a cream-coloured box. She lifted the lid, hands shaking, and opened the volume. There, professionally typed, were revised versions of the NYPL stories, with hundreds of stylistic changes.” - The Guardian (UK)

Some Science Fiction Writers Want To Return To An Earlier Era

How about this one, from 1929? “In Out of the Void, Stone didn’t imagine the future so much as she imagined a different present. Imagine, she asked her readers, … that the oppressed could rise up and achieve justice for themselves and the generations to come after them.” - Reactor

Why Marilynne Robinson Writes About Beauty, And Faith

“The beauty, the moral authority, of high Christian tradition is just very persuasive. The beauty of it all seems right. It seems as if it opens the universe in a way that very few kinds of thinking actually do.” - The New York Times

Why Is Horror Having Such A Moment? Ask The Authors

“We have been living in a moment of constant crisis and existential dread for years now. Many use this as the reason horror is having a moment, but I say it is more the icing on the horror cake.” - People

The Seven Steps To Being A Good Literary Citizen

Those who love books in this rough time should probably do a little more to keep the literary community going. For instance: “Give yourself permission to enjoy things. And remember that being earnest is best.” - LitHub

Quick-Read Kissing Books In Nice Covers Is The New Name Of The Romance Game

831 Books truly, deeply understands its audience (you know, the audience whose dollars fund all other publishing?). “You love holding a book that almost feels like an accessory, like a fashion piece and statement.” - NPR

Social Media Has Made Dostoevsky A Hot Property

“Fyodor Dostoevsky — rigorous dialectician and grand inquisitor into the human soul — is having a moment. The American ‘new right’ has enlisted the Russian author in the debate over ‘cancel culture’; simultaneously, his lesser-known works are receiving unprecedented attention among Gen Z, thanks, in no small part, to TikTok.” - Prospect (UK)

The Intricacies Of Casting Audiobook Actors

“Now, with more than 10,000 regularly working narrators, audiobooks are at the height of diversity casting, but the product can no longer be for the ear and the imagination alone. The actor’s appearance, personal information, social media and politics are also in play.” - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo!)

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