"Étienne Cabet's fictional 1840 travelogue, Voyage en Icarie (Travels in Icaria), … was so popular and affecting that it led hundreds of French citizens to leave their homes and journey to the United States to realize the egalitarian paradise he had described." - Smithsonian Magazine
The attack, which took place on 31 October, is continuing to affect its website, online systems and some onsite services, a statement said. The Rhysida ransomware group claim to be behind the attack, have said they will auction off the stolen data. - BBC
Because the technology works on the basis of image analysis, it is in theory applicable to any writing whatsoever, from Egyptian hieroglyphs to copperplate. Ten years after its initial development, some truly exciting consequences of the development of handwritten text recognition (HTR) techniques are becoming clear. - Aeon
"Genre is a confining madness; it says nothing about how writers write or readers read, and everything about how publishers, retailers and commentators would like them to. … Consider the worst offender: not crime, horror, science fiction, espionage or romance, but 'literary fiction', ... ultimately meaningless except as a confused shorthand." - The Guardian
"By adding to the (original) store space piecemeal, the brothers drifted into the 'superstore' concept by accident. Mathematically, the formula they discovered was astounding (and oversimplified): as their bookstore became larger with better selection, it drew from a larger radius, became more exciting, and sales per square foot increased!" - Literary Hub
He's the media executive fronting the bid by RedBird IMI, a joint venture between two investment funds, based in New York and Abu Dhabi, to buy the Tory-supporting newspaper and magazine in a bankruptcy auction. If successful, Zucker intends to expand the outlets into the US market and beyond. - Variety
"Authentic cuisine. Authentic voice. Authentic self. Authenticity as artifice. Lookups for the word are routinely heavy on the dictionary company’s site but were boosted to new heights throughout the year … in (this) age of deepfakes and post-truth." - AP
The law, passed by the Republican-dominated legislature, prohibits schools from teaching fourteen concepts, including that any individual is “inherently privileged, racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or subconsciously” and that “this state or the United States is fundamentally or irredeemably racist or sexist.” Our book examines the lingering effects of racist policies after Emancipation. - The New Yorker
This was a civic decision: "In clustering all of its bookmakers in one place, South Korea hoped to better produce and distribute a major part of its culture." - The New York Times
There are so few things we can do for the dead; this was something I could do for her. Rebecca had been clear that if she died before the novel was done she did not want it published as an incomplete manuscript. - The New Yorker
Why did it feel, in the mid-2010s, like the conversation was starting from scratch—and why, as the PEN America report phrased it, has “the debate over the lack of diversity in publishing … seemed to stagnate, or to progress only in fits and starts”? - Public Books
"On November 17, eight local plaintiffs joined by the American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska and advocacy group the Northern Justice project filed suit against Matanuska-Susitna Borough school district north of Anchorage, seeking the return of 56 books said to be improperly banned from school shelves." - Publishers Weekly
