On Capitol Hill, Democrats said Tuesday they did not believe that Blanche was the acting librarian — and Republicans, who have repeatedly deferred to Trump even as he has wrested control of federal spending from authorities, indicated that they wanted to maintain their power around the library. - Washington Post
“A class action lawsuit was filed Monday by the Authors Guild, along with independent scholars and writers, against the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and officials within the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) for terminating millions in committed grants from Congressional funds.” - ARTnews
“Today, Audible announced it would begin offering AI-powered narration to select publishers. AI translation services will launch in beta later this year.” CEO Bob Carrigan pointed out that only between two and five percent of all books are available in audio and that the company’s goal is to expand the audio content available. - Publishers Weekly
“We are processing a lot of complex emotions in this moment, as we imagine you are too in light of recent agency developments, but know that we remain unwavering in our overall support of all of you and the critical work you do.” - N+1
We all pretended that we knew what close reading meant. We not only talked about it but we did it. We knew it when we saw it, and we knew when it was done badly—but what it was, in the end, we couldn’t exactly say. - The Nation
Their outputs are a mélange of the passion and experimentalism of the amateurs with the polish and ambition of the pros, and they often possess a briskness that feels shaped by an awareness that an endless selection of other stories is mere clicks away. - The New Yorker
In some ways we’re moving backwards from the model of the lay reader versus professional literary critic. Today there are far fewer lay readers than there used to be, but there is also the emergence of extremely invested, specialized nonacademic reader communities enabled by social media, for example. - The Point
Perhaps not for the reasons you might suspect, though. “I found myself longing for someone, Aldridge perhaps, to mine Christie’s exquisite autobiography more broadly and create an entire one-woman play.” - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo)
“We live in an era in which there is too much information but not enough knowledge, and even less wisdom. This excess of information makes us arrogant and then it makes us numb.” - The Guardian (UK)
“Traces of ink lettering visible in the X-ray images” — virtually unrolled and scanned for words by a specially-designed AI program — "revealed the text to be part of a multi-volume work, On Vices, written by the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus in the first century BC.” - The Guardian
“President Donald Trump on Thursday fired Carla Hayden, the Librarian of Congress — the first woman and first African-American to hold the position. She was informed of the decision in a terse, two-sentence email.” - The Washington Post (Yahoo!)
“Some authors say they're out thousands of dollars after carting books and merchandise to Baltimore for the event” — A Million Lives Book Festival — “and not being able to recoup the costs. … “(Organizer) Archer Management has since apologized for the entire event and stated that refunds are being processed automatically.” - CBC
Here’s what happens when the Pulitzer board either (a) considers none of the three finalists submitted by the jury in a category a worthy winner or, as in this case, (b) can’t find consensus on a single choice among the submitted finalists. - The New York Times
Management began reviewing all store materials after receiving a complaint from a customer against profanity on a greeting card. What began as a purge of purportedly profane materials, including greeting cards, stickers and book titles with swear words, quickly escalated into the quiet removal of more than 60 books from the store. - NBCNews
