The emergence of English as the predominant (though not exclusive) international language is seen by many as a positive phenomenon with several practical advantages and no downside. However, it also raises problems that are slowly beginning to be understood and studied. - The Guardian
"A federal judge has blocked two key portions of SF 496, a recently passed Iowa state law that sought to ban books with sexual content from Iowa schools and to bar classroom discussion of gender identity and sexuality for students below the seventh grade." - Publishers Weekly
"Louise Glück’s … mode of lamentation was her signature, and it seems fitting that one of her poems occasions the end of this column after nine years." - The New York Times Magazine
Syriac, a 2,000-year-old tongue closely related to the Aramaic spoken by Jesus of Nazareth, is today the language of Iraq's Orthodox Christians, a community whose numbers have fallen from 1.5 million to 400,000 over the last twenty war-torn years. A new all-Syriac network is helping keep the language alive. - The World
The trial judge ruled that defendant Hadi Matar and his attorney are entitled to a copy of the manuscript and related material as part of preparing their defense. They are to reply on Wednesday whether they want to postpone the trial until they can receive and read the book. - AP
"A job is a material thing, a book is a material thing—a product—and if we are going to analyze material things we should set forth on the basic understanding that, as a job, bookselling is a victim to much the same trappings as any other job: the exploitation of its workforce." - Public Books
The effect on the B.L. has been traumatic. Its electronic systems are still largely incapacitated. When I visited the library last Monday, the reading rooms were listless and loosely filled. “It’s like a sort of institutional stroke,” Inigo Thomas, a writer for the London Review of Books, told me. - The New Yorker
The bans and the battles over them, writes Laura Miller, might achieve the goal of their wealthy conservative backers (destroy citizens' faith in public schools and libraries so they can be privatized), but they won't, and can't, keep kids from learning about the subject matter. - Slate
New research released by the American Library Association found that more than half of Gen Zers and Millennials surveyed in 2022 had visited a physical library location in the previous year. And of the Gen Zers and Millennials who said that they did not identify as readers, more than half still reported going to the library. - The Atlantic
An author puts a hold on releasing a Russia-set novel, private equity buys one of the big US publishers, controversies break out over the work of two big-name dead writers, book-banners (including a certain governor) on the warpath, people flip out over software … - Literary Hub
Fay Weldon, Russell Banks, Charles Simic, Kenzaburo Oe, Dubravka Ugresic, D.M. Thomas, Martin Amis, Cormac McCarthy, Robert Gottlieb, Milan Kundera, Edith Grossman, Louise Glück, A.S. Byatt, … - Literary Hub
One of the Japan-born ethnic Koreans who emigrated to North Korea in the 1970s, Kim Ju-sŏng lived there for 28 years, working as a novelist for the Korean Workers' Party's propaganda department (the only permitted career path) and getting lousy evaluations before escaping to the South. - The Guardian
Writers not only don’t work alone: they can’t. The key proxy for a vibrant book culture is the little packs they form when things are going well. A literary work of art begins long before the fateful confrontation with the blank page, in the whole life we’ve lived to know what to put upon it. - The Point
"Certain names carry with them the whiff of brimstone. In the world of bibliophiles and booksellers, perhaps no name is more sulphurous than that of Thomas James Wise." - Literary Review (UK)
"When Vladimir Kosarevsky received orders late last year to destroy books referencing same-sex relationships, … (he) knew it was a line he wouldn’t cross. 'I realised that if I did it, I would never ever be able to forgive myself,' (he said) from northern Spain, where he is claiming asylum." - The Guardian
