There are about 7,000 languages spoken in the world today; they can be divided into about 140 families. Nevertheless, the languages most of us speak belong to just five. - Washington Post
The first woman and African American to serve as the US librarian of Congress before Donald Trump fired her in May has not heard from the president’s administration beyond the 31-word email it sent her with word of her dismissal. - The Guardian
Agosto Machado “has been a witness to decades of cultural moments in New York: the experimental theater of the early sixties, Warhol’s factory, the Stonewall riot, the AIDS epidemic, the gentrification of downtown Manhattan.” - Paris Review
Dyer: “The open secret remains as mysteriously elusive as ever. Which is fine because I don’t go to books for comfort; I have a much-loved memory foam pillow for that.” - The Guardian (UK)
“I’m still very alert to the inequality in the world, and also inequality in my industry. I am not there to endorse the status quo. I’m there to bring other people with me and to open the doors, always, to great talent.” - The Guardian (UK)
“I understood the didactic logic of forcing the reader to intellectually and emotionally live through those brutal moments, but the personal distance nagged at me. ... I did not want such images to monopolize my creative output.” - LitHub
Performance, after the cataclysm, is a common theme in science fiction books and shows. That includes, in one of the genre's most literary forms, Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven. But why? - Reactor
Since 2021, the Sunshine State has led the country in advancing the “parental rights” agenda. Contrary to its name, this agenda has used fuzzy, coded language to manufacture moral panic, and to deliver control over what students can read and learn. - PEN America
“Many of the grants were meant to partially reimburse nonprofit publishers for projects they’ve already paid for and completed, leaving them with surprise shortfalls. And while most expect to be able to cover the immediate deficits, they worry about what the move augurs for the future of the literary arts.” - Publishers Weekly
“Researchers from the University of Groningen combined AI and carbon dating to find that many of the scrolls are older than scholars previously estimated. Some, it seems, could date to the time of the biblical authors themselves, not centuries after.” - ARTnews
These are very substantial benefits, and it is true they are lost when we write using a keyboard or keypad. But on balance, far more is gained, which is why the past half century has seen nearly a complete transformation from pen strokes to keystrokes. - Brookings
It’s two problems in one. The detritus — diary entries, to-do lists, correspondence — in which researchers often discover key details rarely gets put on paper these days, and messaging apps often delete material automatically. And if those things are preserved, how do archivists sort through a 4-terabyte hard drive? - The Atlantic (MSN)
These novels, aimed at young men who will soon be targets of recruitment drives, often feature hyper-nationalist, crudely-drawn “accidental travel” plots, wherein the hero is transported to pivotal moments in Russia’s past, using 21st-century knowledge to alter history in Russia’s favor, wreaking revenge against foreigners who try to destroy the Motherland. - The Guardian
