Category: words

“Reproduction” is set in Brampton and explores the nature of family — both blood relatives and chosen family. The writing, as reviewers expect from Williams, is beautiful — he’s written many volumes of poetry, and been shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry prize in 2013. This was his debut novel, proving he’s an equal master in both forms. – Toronto Star

“Not even 20 years ago we mostly read about things in lag, on thin slices of tree, whereas now we do — well, this, whatever this is. Yet instead of technology superannuating literature once and for all, it seems to have created a new space in our minds for it.” – The New York Times Book Review

“Prince & Knight by Daniel Haack was pulled from West Virginia’s Upshur County public library earlier this week, according to local press reports, after a local church minister called it … ‘an intentional leading of children into sin.’ … [Haack said that] anyone concerned the book could ‘turn someone gay’ should remember ‘all the gay adults who grew up only reading about straight romances.'” – The Guardian

2017 was the first time women held a greater share of management jobs than men, and in 2018 they once again had a majority of jobs in that area, though their share fell to 52% (from 59% in 2017). Still, the median compensation for a woman in management was $126,000 last year, up from $110,000 in 2017. Male managers also had an increase, with their median pay rising to $139,000 (from $118,000 in 2017). – Publishers Weekly

“Keeping a large collection of books in a canal city prone to flooding was always a dangerous idea, which is why Venice’s Libreria Acqua Alta (High Water Bookshop) had decided to store its books inside bathtubs, waterproof bins, and even a full-sized gondola. But … this measure wasn’t enough to save the countless books, magazines and other items crammed inside the famous bookstore when the worst floods in half a century hit Venice this week.” – The Local (Italy)

It’s not enough that the speaker is living to say that the language he or she speaks is alive. A living language is one that endures and produces other languages, which is precisely the case with Latin. – LitHub

Adam Frankel, a former member of Obama’s speechwriting team: “‘Something about this draft just doesn’t feel right.’ That, or something like it, is probably the most frequent feedback a speechwriter ever receives, and it is typically accompanied by precisely zero suggestions on what to do about it. I never heard Obama utter those words. In fact, I was always struck by the precision of his edits. If a certain sentence or structure had problems, he’d tell us exactly how to fix them.” – Literary Hub

“Reading on my phone is not a perfect cure for my drowsiness, which seems to be a condition of aging, and stress, or both. I’ll never again be 14 years old with an insatiable appetite for one more chapter, and that’s sad. But I can approximate that feeling, reading on my phone, in bed, with the lights out, long after I should have gone to sleep.” – The Cut

Whew. All of this: “The response has been that there’s been a couple of very successful books about Trump, but if you’re not writing about Trump, you know, where does that take you? What do you do? How does a literary novel that’s functioning on all of the rules that were there, which were not really stated prior to this moment, now function in this new moment? Is the writing of literary fiction a parlor game for the upper middle class? Maybe it is. But what happens when that upper middle class completely freaks out in response to a public event outside of that relatively small ecosystem?” – Literary Hub

Spearheaded, and named, by Dorothy L. Sayers, the name of Mutual Admiration Society “both captures the spirit of the group and misrepresents it. They supported each other boldly and emphatically: no false modesty or feminine shame here. They were willing to be relentless and did not insist on being liked. … They were critical, and they were at odds. They fell apart and came together again, over the course of decades and remarkable careers that ranged from birth control advocacy to genre fiction, from classrooms to the stage.” – Literary Hub