Category: words

On reading, and really feeling, Virginia Woolf as a middle-aged writer. – LitHub

Here the map of Black-owned bookstores in the U.S. And the recent uptick (well, massive increase) in business “is both ‘lucrative’ and ‘bittersweet,'” say some owners. – Oprah Magazine

This is the way of powerful literature, across hundreds (or thousands) of years. “It landed in the hands of a schoolgirl who would one day fall in love with it. At first, she pushed it away, bored as she always was by homework, but the poem wouldn’t let go of her. It let itself be found again and again, until at last she fell for its charms.” – Irish Times

The term was coined, by a white writer, in 1993. It might have been a good start, but there are issues: “It lacks room to conceive of Blackness outside of the Black American diaspora or a Blackness independent from any relationship to whiteness, erasing the long history of Blackness that existed before the centuries of violent oppression by whiteness — and how that history creates the possibility of imagining the free Black futures.” Hence the terms, coined and popularized by writer Nnedi Okorafor, Africanfuturism and Africanjujuism. – Los Angeles Review of Books

These days, book covers are all about nature; they’re festooned with flowers, swirling with birds and littered with leaves. Those aren’t the only trends we’ve noticed, however. Here’s a look at eight, with a couple of samples from each category. – Washington Post

How realistic is it for writers to get rich from selling adaptation rights? “It’s just not,” says Joanna Nadin, whose YA novel Joe All Alone was adapted into a Bafta-winning 2018 television series. “It’s unrealistic to think any aspect of writing can make you rich.” – The Guardian

“Without widespread consumer awareness that most books are not fact checked, or about which imprints publish which books, there’s no real reason for publishers to care about fact checking. If it comes to light that a book contains major errors, it’s the author, not the publisher, whose reputation takes the hit. … Meanwhile, the stakes of not fact checking books only continue to get higher, as it’s become easier and easier to destroy a book’s credibility with a few clicks.” – Esquire

“For too long, we have watched the detrimental impact of Amazon’s business on our communities and the independent bookselling world,” Powell wrote. “We understand that in many communities, Amazon — and big box retail chains — have become the only option. And yet when it comes to our local community and the community of independent bookstores around the U.S., we must take a stand.” – Geekwire

“We do not think we should exist, because we do not believe prisons should exist,” says a member of Liberation Library, founded in 2015 in Chicago and serving incarcerated young people in Illinois, “but as long as they do, we will continue sending books to young people inside.” – Vogue

“More Americans are buying Bibles they read less — if ever — and reading Bibles they didn’t buy because they’re dipping into verses here and there online …, according to the findings in the 10th annual State of the Bible study from the American Bible Society and the Barna Group. And the report’s co-author … points optimistically to soaring use of digital apps and audio Bibles.” – Publishers Weekly