Category: words

A book “is a fluid path from an idea, along a stream bed whose variations, detours and eddies are unknown until the water that flows into it finds itself moved.” – LitHub

Who had “Margaret Atwood versus J.K. Rowling” on their 2020 bingo card? Because that’s part of what’s happened since the author of the Harry Potter series went on an anti-trans jaunt in the past few years, culminating in her latest mystery plot. The open letter reads, in part, “We are writers, editors, journalists, agents and professionals in multiple forms of publishing. We believe in the power of words. … We say: nonbinary people are nonbinary, trans women are women, trans men are men, trans rights are human rights. Your pronouns matter. You matter. You are loved.” – Los Angeles Times

Terrifying for book lovers, that is. Take Vroman’s in Los Angeles, for instance. “The past several years had been among the bookstore’s most profitable, ‘and all of a sudden, you fall off a cliff.'” – Los Angeles Times

Early medieval libraries lent books often and lending books for copying was, in fact, seen as an act of Christian charity. The books were borrowed not only by other monasteries but also by local priests and lay people. The list kept by the meticulous monks of Wissembourg was perhaps maintained until the middle of the tenth century. It is a living list. – History Today

The new Nobel laureate’s themes remain all too relevant. “Glück examines the human compulsion to retell stories and reimagine scenes; in the face of grief, sadness, and destruction, she asks, how can belief in new beginnings possibly still persist?” – The Atlantic

“You start reading AITA posts before bed instead of doomscrolling the news because here, at least, it feels like your opinion matters. … It’s a place where accountability actually exists, even if only in the form of branding someone right or wrong in one absurd situation. It’s also a place for growth: Sometimes posters return to talk about how their lives changed — almost always for the better — because of the advice they got from thousands of anonymous strangers. … AITA might [now] be the largest public forum for conflict resolution on the planet. ” – The Ringer

“The deal with French publishers would come on the eve of a ruling by a French appeals court on a so-called neighbouring right enshrined in revamped EU copyright rules, which allows publishers to demand a fee from online platforms for showing news snippets.” – Reuters

“The writer, 77, born in New York, is one of the most celebrated poets in America. She has previously won a Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award, a National Book Critics Circle Award and a Bollingen Prize. She was the poet laureate of the United States from 2003 to 2004. Before today, only 15 women have ever won the Nobel Prize in literature since it was first awarded in 1901.” – The Washington Post

Dr. Karen Leigh King had become a very rare thing: a theology professor whose speaking engagements could sell out a venue. Her work on the Gnostic Gospels, in particular a fragmentary Coptic manuscript called the Gospel of Mary (referring to Mary Magdalene), had brought to light the real possibility that women could real influence and authority in the earliest centuries of Christianity. Then, in 2010, she received an email with the subject line “Coptic gnostic gospels in my collection” … – Literary Hub

With respect to grammatical gender, there are three kinds of languages: gendered (e.g., Spanish, Arabic), where virtually all nouns are designated masculine, feminine, or, in some cases, neuter; genderless (e.g., Chinese, Turkish), with no grammatical or lexical distinction between male and female; or “natural gender” (e.g., English, Swedish), where only people and animals who possess a biological gender get gendered nouns and pronouns. Do speakers of gendered and genderless languages tend to see the world differently? Do their countries differ in gender (in)equality? Nayantara Dutta looks at some research. – BBC