The Initial Teaching Alphabet was a radical, little-known educational experiment trialled in British schools (and in other English-speaking countries) during the 1960s and 70s. Billed as a way to help children learn to read faster by making spelling more phonetically intuitive, it radically rewrote the rules of literacy for tens of thousands of children. - The Guardian
Are you happy to watch Cormac McCarthy’s characters speak both English and Spanish, since they live on the border, or do you seek out translation? What about the Igbo in Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie’s books? Keep reading, maybe figure it out in context, or use Google Translate? - LitHub
They’re not fans. One: “'I’ve narrated really raunchy sex scenes – AI doesn’t know what an orgasm sounds like,’ she says. ‘Birth scenes as well – I’d love to know how they plan on getting around that.’” - The Guardian (UK)
It’s all a win for families (and sometimes adults as well): “Reading aloud engages kids in the story rather than their getting tangled up in the mechanics of reading. As a result, they can have deep discussions, build on current reading levels, and later have conversations with peers.” - Slate
There’s Prose to the People, "a kind of fun celebration of how bookstores in general operate as more than just, like, a place where you go and pay money for a book. They are something bigger, and they mean something more to a community.” - NPR
That’s because the “memoir” (and its sequels, not to mention the new movie starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs) was at least partly fiction, covering up theft, a criminal case, and land in France. - The Observer (UK)
“Debuting at fifty-three is sweet. And I am so incredibly grateful. The dream I had as a girl—the one I couldn’t say aloud—not in my family—has somehow, astonishingly, come true.” - LitHub
“Unwilling to portray themselves as victims (cringe, politically wrong), or as aggressors (toxic masculinity), unable to assume the authentic voices of others (appropriation), younger white men are no longer capable of describing the world around them,” Savage, who is 41, wrote. - The New York Times
“F. Scott Fitzgerald was fulsome in his praise and Sinclair Lewis declared it the ‘first book to catch Manhattan”. … As Gatsby continues to be lionised, analysed and republished — and adapted for film and the musical stage — John Dos Passos’s novel Manhattan Transfer remains a niche concern.” - Prospect (UK)
Let’s call this what it is: a case about borrowed books and a legal system struggling to reckon with machines that never ask before they take. - LitHub
“This isn’t about banning books,” Premier Danielle Smith posted on X. “It’s about protecting kids from graphic, sexually explicit content that has no place in a classroom.” (None of the books appear to have been part of any classroom curriculum, nor were students compelled to read them.) - The Walrus
“It’s called performative reading not just because someone might be pretending to read, but rather that they want everyone to know they read. The presumption is that they’re performing for passersby, signaling they have the taste and attention span to pick up a physical book instead of putting in AirPods.” - The Guardian
In the early 1970s, when many American women still couldn’t open bank accounts in their own names and the terms (and concepts) “domestic violence” and “sexual harassment” hadn’t yet been developed, Ms. Magazine helped bring about real change. The staff, meanwhile, got thousands of letters as well as occasional death threats. - The Guardian
“Writing Australia, Creative Australia’s new literature body, launches today, bringing the history of Australian cultural policy full circle: writers were the first artists in Australia to receive government support. … Government investment in the sector is critical – not least because supporting writers is nation-building work.” - The Guardian
Which of America’s founding fathers began writing his memoirs in the early 1770s, a project that remained unfinished when it was posthumously published in 1793? - The New York Times
