The news that a team of students, using AI on digital scans, has deciphered the text on one of the scrolls carbonized in the 79 AD eruption of Vesuvius was greeted with excitement in many places — but not among the current residents of the site. - Artnet
"Most linguists think those speakers were nomadic herders on the steppes of Ukraine and Russia about 6,000 years ago. Yet a minority put the origin 2,000 to 3,000 years earlier, (in agricultural) Anatolia. ... Now a new analysis, using techniques borrowed from evolutionary biology, has come down in favor of the latter." - Knowable
The controversy is over nominations for the 2023 awards: the ceremony was held for the first time in China, in Chengdu. Memos leaked afterward show that, in an act of anticipatory censorship, several titles with enough votes to be finalists were declared ineligible out of fear of offending China's government. - Salon
It turns out that the volumes most frequently pilfered from SFPL shelves aren't, say, bestselling thrillers; they're books about addiction and recovery. So city officials want to start giving such books away for free. - AP
"Governor Ron DeSantis on Thursday came out in support of a proposal to limit book bans in schools. ... In a press conference, DeSantis tried to claim that accusations that he has enabled book bans in the state of Florida are 'a fraud' and 'a big hoax.'" - The New Republic
While the nation has been focusing on book bans, school libraries all around us have gone without enough (noncontroversial) books. Or inviting furniture. Or amenities that would help create a sense of community. - Washington Post
"IDF raids on Palestinian publishing houses are nothing new. Seven Palestinian publishing houses were raided or destroyed over a six-month period in 2016-2017, and eleven more were targeted in a seven-month period in 2021." - LitHub
Goodreads appears to be somewhat innocently letting “the public” tell other members of the public what is worthwhile. "For the well-reviewed author, this is a fine setup. For the author who may not benefit from a wide general readership, it’s a psychological thriller.” - The Guardian (UK)
“Please just read me a story without distraction. I don’t need to hear a variety of voices from a single narrator if a full-cast production is not in the cards. Not every novel needs to be read as a radio drama. And please go light on the accents." - LitHub
Then Hugo Awards rumors started; now leaked emails confirm that “one of the Hugo administrators had advised other members to vet the finalists and 'highlight anything of a sensitive political nature' in China. ... Such works, he added, might not be safe to put on the ballot." - The New York Times
The news that we could finally read these still rolled-up papyri hit me like a lightning bolt. In the past, opening the scrolls, even those in excellent condition that unrolled easily, caused damage to them – especially the outsides that contain the beginning of each text. - The Conversation
"The change will affect prizes for fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and young people’s literature to begin including authors 'who maintain their primary, long-term home in the United States, US territories, or Tribal lands' regardless of their citizenship status." - Mother Jones
