The bill "provides subsidies for renting space to open bookstores and the introduction of book certificates (worth 908 hryvnia, or about $22) for 18-year-olds starting this year.” - LitHub
Molly Templeton’s desire is “for us to have the time, the space, the mental bandwidth to welcome uncertainty, to crank up our curiosity and give the weird or confusing or just slightly unexpected books a chance. And I want it to be totally okay and acceptable and normal.” - Reactor Mag
The cuts to the more than 200 library branches had become a political thorn in the mayor’s side. In the weeks leading up to the budget agreement, Council members and library leaders mounted an aggressive pressure campaign. - Gothamist
At the request of right-wing Christianist activists who describe the books as “very sexually explicit” and “filthy and evil,” the superintendent of schools in Mission, a city in the Rio Grande Valley, promptly agreed to withdraw from library shelves specified books about gender/sexuality, race, and Jewishness. - Jewish Telegraphic Agency
"The data show that implicitly-measured attitudes are revealed in and perhaps reinforced by language, which is a key vehicle of transmitting culture. If we want to durably address and reduce implicit bias in society, we will likely need interventions that adopt a more cultural (or macro level) focus." - Phys
Mirror-writing, after all, isn't that hard to read once you figure out the idea, and a genius like Leonardo could easily have come up with an encrypted code. Some have suggested that the mirror-writing was an act of resistance, which seems like presentism. The likely reason is actually a practical one. - Artnet
"If ever a book ought not to be judged by its cover, Edgar Allan Poe’s debut collection, Tamerlane and Other Poems, is that book. Known as the Black Tulip, only twelve copies appear to have survived since its publication in July 1827." - Literary Hub
The situation has created a language crisis, in which Americans of all types and backgrounds use expressions of every provenance, destroying the power of slang to perform its basic function: to signal membership in a group. - The Atlantic
"In April, a beneficiary of his sister-in-law’s estate in Paris auctioned (Léopold Sédar_ Senghor’s private library of over 800 works, including 343 signed books. Worried about preserving his cultural legacy, the Senegalese government stepped in to halt the sale and bought the entire collection last month." - The New York Times
"In short, Internet Archive transmitted literary works to the entire world while refusing to license the requisite rights from the authors and publishers who make such works possible." - Ars Technica
We’re in a language crisis. "The discourse that produces new slang is not only publicly available online, but also amplified based on its ability to attract attention from outside its original context, … destroying the power of slang to perform its basic function: to signal membership in a group.” - The Atlantic
Finishing a trilogy or a series isn’t easy for most writers, but Adeyemi faced physical challenges along the way. She says, "I like that I can stand in front of readers and say, “Hey, we know life’s going to knock us down. That’s life. Life is going to life.” - The New York Times
Jeremy Cooper, the winner of the 2019 Fitzcarraldo Prize, remembers when he had a little cushion of money from selling art and a lot of chutzpah: "I ditched my literary agent Curtis Brown, as they strongly advised me against writing fiction and since then I’ve handled all my work myself.” - The Guardian (UK)
“The excavation of the political from the personal is always worth studying, which is part of the reason People has always been such a rich text. But today’s People Magazine is thinner, less glossy, and generally less substantive.” True for many magazines, but for People? It's Barry Diller. - Culture Study
