INTERESTING ARTICLES

Here's the space to post links to anything that catches your eye and you think the folks here would enjoy reading, or would enjoy disagreeing and discussing.

To start us off, here are links to that most dangerous of things -- lists of new and exciting books being published this year.

https://electricliterature.com/75-books-by-women-of-color-to-read-in-2024/

https://lithub.com/lit-hubs-most-anticipated-books-of-2024/?single=true

https://themillions.com/2024/01/most-anticipated-the-great-winter-2024-preview.h...

I'm looking forward to Bear by Julia Phillips (who wrote the incandescent Disappearing Earth), Real Americans by Rachel Khong (she wrote Goodbye, Vitamin), Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange (he wrote There There), and The Wedding People by Alison Espach (She wrote Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance).

What are you looking forward to?

Interesting. I never look at lists of books coming out as my head is usually swivelled toward the past, but scrolling through these lists, I came across a few I'm excited about reading:

Waubegeshig Rice, Moon of the Turning Leaves (sequel to the Moon of the Crusted Snow)

Salmon Rushdie, Knife (about his being stabbed and the aftermath)

Vladimir Sorokin, Blue Lard (because what about a love affair between Stalin and Khrushchev doesn't sound entertaining and Ice Trilogy was brutually memorable)

>3 labfs39: I’m really looking ford to getting Knife
Meditations After an Attempted Murder. Not that I’m a great fan of his writing, but I’d seen him in Manhattan in restaurants and walking around and he seemed so relaxed after his years of being under the Fatwa. Though I think it’s dropped?

A Guardian article about ‘futuristic’ new libraries in Ghent, Helsinki and elsewhere:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/jan/08/libraries-for-the-future-europes-n...

Angel City Press, a small publisher specializing in books about Los Angeles and southern California, looked like it was about to go under when its co-founders announced that they were retiring. But the publisher has been saved, acquired by the Los Angeles Public Library.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2024-01-08/the-l-a-public...

The newest decorating trend is books. This article is a little weird and as one commenter put it -- it's less about owning books than about owning an old house with a lot of wood and built-ins.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/15/style/do-you-have-bookshelf-wealth.html?searc...

Rather fluffy article about the dos and don’ts of bookshelves as backgrounds for video calls.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/jan/17/shelf-absorbed-nine-ways-to...

>10 thorold: I like his tongue-in-cheek approach.

>10 thorold: I'm the idiot who organizes her books so that I can find them again. Such a fashion faux pas

>12 labfs39: Yes, I can’t think how we all fell into that trap…

>12 labfs39: Ha! I just sorted my paperback tbr into colors. Since I'm trying to read more spontaneously, I thought mixing them all up would encourage that. It does look very nice and I'm hoping I won't get frustrated at not finding a specific book and put it back into alphabetical order by author again soon.

>14 RidgewayGirl: When our house in Seattle was staged, the designer had me box about 90% of my books, arranged the rest by color and then brought baskets and such to put on the rest of the shelves. Fortunately I didn't have to look at it long, as I left and had others box the rest of the books and add them to my cargo to be shipped. The sight of all that empty bookshelf space drove me nuts, and my fingers itched to rearrange the books. That said, I do shelf my NYRBs and my Europa Editions together. Something about the sameness of the books yet random different colors is attractive to me. They are alphabetical though. :-)

When I still worked I arranged my closet by color. Now nothing makes it to the closet.

>16 dianeham: Ha!

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C1ryx_DLK7C/

Ann Patchett talking about two of her books being banned in schools in Florida.

>18 dianeham: Wow. I simply don't know what to say. Book banning has gone off the rails into ludicrous country. Maybe Florida should just stop teaching kids to read. Would that solve their problem?

>19 labfs39: Don't give them any ideas. They might go for that.

>18 dianeham: i saw that. And somewhere else in Florida (of course?) the dictionary was banned. I’m guessing this is all some sort of rightwing power-trip whose purpose is to make normal people gasp in horror. I can’t make any other sense of it.

A very interesting essay on how we think and write about Keats, by Susan Eilenberg in the London Review of Books. https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n02/susan-eilenberg/hooted-from-the-stage

Nominally, this is a review essay about two recent books on Keats (Lucasta Miller's Keats: A Brief Life in Nine Poems and One Epitaph and Anahid Nersessian's Keats’s Odes: A Lover’s Discourse), but Eilenberg is making a broader point about how we tend to view Keats through a specific, tragic lens that was concocted by those in his orbit who sought to profit from, and take advantage of his suffering, for their own benefit. She is thinking particularly of Joseph Severn, an artist who accompanied Keats in the last few months of his life, and is particularly scathing about how Severn then leveraged this association for himself:

Severn would dine out on tender recollections of Keats’s gestures of appreciation and gratitude for the rest of his life; a professional celebrity widow, he would stand in his rooms in Rome, furnished with what Sue Brown, in her judicious 2009 biography of Severn, describes as ‘props’ carefully and as if casually displayed to elicit from admiring visitors questions about his art and his relationship to Keats; he would recall what it had been like to be in the presence of the poet when he was inspired to compose, say, ‘Bright Star’ – not that he would know, because he hadn’t in fact been there.

She has some equally smarting things to say about Shelley (whom I have personally never cared for). Her broader point is that to see Keats, we must de-Severnise. Thus taken, Keats is not just the tragic, dying, boy-genius, but also the trained surgeon who eschewed the scalpel for the word, who "wants what he has always wanted, to soothe pain. If he cannot soothe it, he wants to redeem it as creative power.". I found the essay interesting: it made me revisit some probably lazy assumptions I've had about Keats, purely because I haven't read enough about him. Based on her review, I'm likely to read Miller's book, and unlikely to pick up Nersessian.

This is interesting from the Washington Post - Breaking up with Goodreads: The best book-logging apps for 2024. LT is #2. Published today 1/22

https://wapo.st/3vOasDy

>23 dianeham: Amusing that what they focus on on LT is entering music and movies... Ah well, if they talked about how precise the cataloging can be they'd probably turn off most people.

>23 dianeham: Thanks, Diane.

>24 jjmcgaffey: IKR? for some of us using a barcode scanner to scan all our books was the big attraction.

For me it was partly that (CueCat, I started loooong before there was an app), but mostly that somehow (helped by said scanner, but I have/had a lot of pre-ISBN books), despite all the precision that LT wants/encourages in cataloging, I could actually get an entire section of my books cataloged here _before_ I bought new books, discarded books, or otherwise completely rearranged it. Which had not worked with paper, spreadsheets, dedicated cataloging software...LT just works for me.

An article from The Guardian about the controversy over this year's Hugo Awards: Science fiction awards held in China under fire for excluding authors

I found this one quite interesting, about the home/office of the man Black History Month : https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/01/realestate/black-history-month-woodson.html?u...

>28 Julie_in_the_Library: It will be interesting to learn what happened. Despite the growing number of popular Chinese scifi writers, I'm surprised the awards are being held there.

>30 labfs39: I can't remember if this article mentions it, but there were concerns about the possibility of issues like this when China first won the bid to hold the awards. As to whether we'll ever find out exactly what happened - that's an open question.

>30 labfs39: The Wirldcon was held there - and as the Hugos are part of it, they went there as well. It has nothing to do with the authors’ numbers. The bid is not for the Awards but for the convention - the awards are just the more visible part of it outside of fandom.

And where the WorldCon goes is chosen by the members of the one 2 years earlier (once someone says they can do one of course and bids for the year). There was a lot of noise when that one was selected with people expecting shenanigans. But the selection followed the rules so they got it.

>30 labfs39: >32 AnnieMod: It'll be interesting to see what, if anything, changes about the process going forward.

>28 Julie_in_the_Library: very disturbing.

>28 Julie_in_the_Library: just about to post that here first thing i thought of was china getting even with some unliked authors. Too bad because i thought it was a good place for it to be, considering how many asian authors are writing about scifi. so maybe not go there any more. bee interesting how this plays out

>32 AnnieMod: I didnt know that Annie thanks

Nice if true (or keeps holding)

‘Reading is so sexy’: gen Z turns to physical books and libraries

... Last year in the UK 669m physical books were sold, the highest overall level ever recorded. Research from Nielsen BookData highlights that it is print books that gen Z favour, accounting for 80% of purchases from November 2021 to 2022. Libraries are also reporting an uptick in gen Z users who favour their quiet over noisy coffee shops. In the UK in-person visits are up 71%. ...

>37 LolaWalser: I don't know if this is just a general trend, but today I also saw an article about how Gen Z is returning to analog photography as well. I wonder if this is a general reaction to a surfeit of digital content.

>39 rv1988:

I hadn't heard that, but it doesn't surprise me. Photographs in particular are so laden with emotion and memories and no matter how many digital backups one makes, nothing is as secure as a photo in one's hands. I lost so much precious digital data already. But the albums with "real" photos are still here. I fear the complete loss of "past" technologies. Heh, that reminds me--recently I gave a whole bunch of CDs to a colleague's kid but I also had to give her a CD player (my old portable Sony Walkman) because they had none. It was weird showing a 14 year old how to handle CDs and the player!

Dara Horn's article in The Atlantic last week is incisive, articulate, and devestating. The link goes to an archived version with no paywall.

as usual she hits the nail on the head. People are always surprised that antisemitism started with the Romans (mad that the jews had a revoltion against them) what shocked me was the discription of the blood libel at the same time period. Havent finished reading; but wondering is she will include something that we can do to counter this. sigh

>41 Julie_in_the_Library: I finally read this today. Painful.

An interesting article on censorship here. Although none of her examples include journalism, which I find frustrating.

>44 markon: Thanks for sharing that article. I appreciated the discussion of middleman and private censorship as a result of state censorship, not separate from it.

'Real' Mr Darcy was nothing like Colin Firth, academics say
A bit of fun.

The Puritanical Eye: Hyper-mediation, Sex on Film, and the Disavowal of Desire by Carlee Gomes is very interesting, even if you're not into film studies. She has a lot to say about shifts in American culture generally that I found fascinating, and definitely reflect what I've been seeing in fandom circles online.

A profile of Percival Everett in the New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/03/18/percival-everett-profile

I really enjoyed reading this. It's a peek into the mind of a genuine original. Here's a peek:

In 1992, Everett bought a ranch in the Banning Pass, between Los Angeles and Palm Springs, where he grew more than a hundred varieties of roses and tended to horses, donkeys, and mules. Neighbors were always bringing injured animals to his doorstep. One day, he found a baby crow that had fallen out of a tree. Everett cared for the crow until it was strong enough to fly, but the crow would simply fly in a loop, land beside him, and start to walk. When Everett tried to drive to town, the crow followed his truck, flying in tandem with his moving face. Everett built a perch out of PVC and stuck it in the cab so that they could travel around together. “I kept trying to get him to go out and have crow sex,” Everett told me. “I said, ‘Listen, you’re not going to get much satisfaction here.’ ”

At the time, Everett was working on “Erasure,” and the crow would shuffle down his arm and peck at the keys. But then he went on vacation, and the bird disappeared. Everett eventually assumed he was dead. He’d named him Jim. Jim Crow.

>49 rv1988: That's a lovely anecdote. He often uses a picture with Jim as his author photo.

For anyone interested in the US and Canada, here's a way to access Japanese works in translation.

https://tr.jpf.go.jp/jf-overdrive-digital-library/

>50 RidgewayGirl: Ooh, this looks great. I signed up immediately. I'm curious to see their holdings.

I just read an interesting article from about a year ago discussing how journalists have been approaching Covid: Three Years Later, Covid-19 Is Still a Health Threat. Journalism Needs to Reflect That.

I'm always interested in discussions about how we discuss or write about topics. There's a level of meta there that I particularly enjoy. And much of what is written in this is still applicable a year later, as far as I can tell.

>52 Julie_in_the_Library: The article provides a fresh pov on the topic of media coverage of covid. All I seem to hear is that the news (and liberals) are overinflating the issues.

>53 labfs39: agreed. And as someone who is both high risk and immunocompromised, it's pretty terrifying.

>54 Julie_in_the_Library: I was just reading about the increasing rates of long covid and the geographic disparities. I live in Maine, one of the states with the highest rates of long covid. Both my daughter and I had it, and my daughter still has effects four years later.

I found David Zvi Kalman's recent musings on Shabbat and the internet very interesting.

>55 labfs39: I'm sorry to hear that. Living with chronic illness stinks.

>56 Julie_in_the_Library: Im dealing with it myself; have bursitis of the hip since January, cant stand or walk very long. Gotten shots, doing excersise but nothing is helping. Going to another dr to see if he has any idea. I miss my dancing but right now trying not to hurt when I am standing to make my breakfast.....sitting is fine, so I am reading at least. (sorry not an article, just a vent)

At Fast Company, Elizabeth Segren reports on how font and layout changes at HarperCollins are making books shorter and saving trees:

https://www.fastcompany.com/91071102/harper-collins-made-a-tiny-tweak-to-its-boo...

>59 KeithChaffee: That's really interesting.

>58 cindydavid4: it's important to be able to vent sometimes. I don't think anyone here minds. I don't. You should try a rheumatologist, if you haven't already. They're good at figuring out these chronic mystery illnesses. That's how my lupus and CI/SU were diagnosed. I hope you're able to get the help you need to start feeling better soon.

>61 Julie_in_the_Library: been there done that along with ortho, a pain managment dr PT and now a sport doctor. I am hoping by the end of this it will finally heal ( thanks for your kind words)

According to CBS News and other media outlets, today is the last day as a bricks and mortar store for Liberation Station Bookstore, a Black owned children's bookshop in Raleigh, North Carolina whose parents decided to open an independent bookshop that sold books about children of color that they had read and approved for their two sons, and recommended for similar children, after not finding many of these books in Raleigh, a large college town which is also the state capital. It opened on Juneteenth (June 19th) last year, but it quickly fell afoul of White nationalists (Trump/MAGA worshippers), who began to send hate mail to the bookshop, along with death threats, including, most disturbingly, the description of what a young store employee was wearing on a White nationalist Instagram page.

Fortunately the bookstore will remain open in online form, but that in itself isn't nearly as useful as having a physical store in what should be a safe environment.

There are only an estimated 149 (make that 148) independent Black bookshops in the United States, which comprise roughly 6% of the total number. Considering that this country consists of 12% of the population it's easily to see that the Black community is grossly underserved, and the loss of a single bookshop, especially one that caters to our children, is a tragedy. Fortunately Philadelphia has several Black bookshops, including Harriett's Bookshop in Fishtown, my favorite bookshop in the city.

Black-owned children's bookstore in North Carolina is closing over alleged threats

>63 kidzdoc: Not sure what to say about this, it’s so sad and revolting.

An interesting article in the LA Times about how prehistory is used to push various political agendas (though I suppose the same could be said about pretty much any kind of knowledge, and how we keep instinctively rejecting the truth of complexity and nuance in favor of more engaging "stories"):

We're desperate for half-truths about human origins

New York Magazine's The Intelligencer put out an article in February looking into the ongoing shortage of ADHD medication: The Empty Adderall Factory: A drugmaker’s feud with the DEA is exacerbating the ADHD meds crisis — at a rate of 600 million missing doses a year

>63 kidzdoc: How awful.

Salman Rushdie Reflects on His Stabbing in a New Memoir
Knife is an account of the writer’s brush with death in 2022, and the long recovery that followed.

A few years back I saw Salmon Rushdie in SoHo NYC. He was at a table near the one I was sitting at, surrounded by his friends. I remember thinking “good”, he’s able to have a normal life.

“So it’s you,” Salman Rushdie remembers thinking on the morning of Aug. 12, 2022, as a black-clad man, a “squat missile,” sprinted toward him on an auditorium stage in Chautauqua, N.Y. Rushdie thought: “Here you are.”

Last night I read this Q&A article from Politico about the campus antisemtism at Berkley.

Pulitzer Prize Announcement: https://www.pulitzer.org/news/2024-pulitzer-prize-announcement-0

>71 janoorani24: I hadn't even heard of Night Watch before today.

>72 RidgewayGirl: Me neither. I put it on my wish list, though. Although, looking back at the list, I hadn't heard of most of them.

Interesting article by Marion Turner in LRB, reviewing a recent book on translators in the Middle Ages. She discusses the prevalence of translation, knowledge-sharing and multilingualism in this period. I learned a lot.

Chaucer’s Treatise on the Astrolabe, written in the 1390s for his ten-year-old son, Lewis, is an English translation of a Latin version of an Arabic text written by Mashallah ibn Athari, an eighth-century Persian Jew. In the prologue, Chaucer says that Lewis only knows a little Latin, but is good with numbers, and so the treatise will teach him how to use the astrolabe he has just been given as a present. After all, Chaucer says, the facts remain the same whether Hebrew, Arabic, Latin, Greek or English is used; he himself is a compiler, bringing together the work of old astrologers into ‘naked words in englissh’

Also, who knew that Chauncer was fluent in Tuscan?

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n09/marion-turner/stop-talking-englissh

>74 rv1988: Fascinating! I am wishlisting Zrinka Stahuljak's book, as this is an area I am very interested in. I read a book about female Renaissance translators: Les traductrices françaises de la Renaissance : Ethos et discours paratextuel (1521-1568) recently, but found it disappointing. It was a run-of-the-mill PhD thesis - very literal and narrow in focus. It looks like Fixers: Agency, Translation and the Early Global History of Literature might be a more satisfying read :-)

In the 'how didn't I know this' category, on this day In 1958, the motorcade of Vice President Richard Nixon was attacked in Caracas, Venezuela, during Nixon’s goodwill tour of South America. An angry crowd rushed the motorcade, attacking with stones and fists and attempting to overturn the vehicle carrying Nixon. Several Secret Service agents were wounded. He was considered a hero when he arrived back home.

the wiki article was very interesting and gave me some more respect for tricky dicky. Although the incident lead to US interference in SA, and led to him considering which countries needed a dictator leader.

I was a year old at the time; anyone remember this ?

Today's issue of The New York Times features an article about a newly released movie about the great Southern Gothic novelist Flannery O'Connor, who is easily one of my 10 favorite American fiction writers. She died from complications of lupus at the age of 39, so her career was painfully cut short. I'm nearly as curious about her life as I am about Frida Kahlo's, so I'll try to catch this film in Philadelphia or NYC in the near future.

What Ethan Hawke's 'Wildcat' Gets Right About Flannery O'Connor

The article references her short story 'The Life You Save May Be Your Own,' which was adapted into a 1957 television drama 'The Life You Save,' starring Gene Kelly and Agnes Moorhead. O'Connor said that "the best I can say for it is that it conceivably could have been worse. Just conceivably."

https://youtu.be/ku6JwCcfyt0

Last week I read this article from Boston Globe Magazine that's absolutely wild: The Secret Lives of Shelby Hewitt.

I didn't remember her by name, but she does appear in our middle school yearbooks, and I do remember her face. (As the article mentions, she's not pictured or mentioned in our senior year high school yearbook, which is the only high school yearbook I got.) Obviously, this is not something that I (or anyone else) would have predicted back when we were in school together.

>78 Julie_in_the_Library: How bizarre. I'm curious what the result of the criminal case will be and her motivations. I have no doubt it will become a book at some point.

>79 labfs39: Bizarre is the word. I don't remember Shelby enough to speak to her high school experience, but for my part, there is not enough money in the world to make me voluntarily subject myself to being a teenager again. I genuinely can't even imagine wanting to, let alone going to such lengths to make it happen.

>78 Julie_in_the_Library: wow, this totally slipped by me. How very strange.

>80 Julie_in_the_Library: I so agree. being a teenager was probaby the worst time in my life. things got better as I got older and if given the change Id stay right here in my senior age, thank you very much

This one's a few years old, but it's an essay, not a news article, so it hasn't lost interest or relevance, and I only read it yesterday (though the tab has been open on my phone's Firefox browser since it was first published in 2022):

An app that identifies trees and flowers is changing my life
by Andrew Silow-Carroll

It's from the JTA's Ideas section, and in it, the author, Andrew Silow-Carroll, uses the experience of learning to identify local plantlife to discuss "the whole notion of naming things, and how this basic human impulse changes our relationship with the natural world."

A quote I particularly liked was "The more names I learn, the more the outdoors stops just being the background and becomes a text."

a plauge comes before the fall lessons from roman history

Thieves are stealing first edition Pushkins across Europe: https://www.newser.com/story/349778/crime-syndicates-odd-target-first-edition-pu...

>82 Julie_in_the_Library: This is a lovely article. I recently downloaded a similar app and I have been thoroughly enjoying learning a lot of new plant names. I took it to our Botanic Gardens and that was a real experience.

For anyone interested in Doctor Who: Russell T. Davies turned to fantasy to make Doctor Who think harder by Charles Pullman-Moore at the Verge.

>86 Julie_in_the_Library: As one of those interested in Doctor Who, thanks for that! I'd seen some similar comments from him before, but I hadn't read that particular interview.

They’re all arguing all the time, and that’s just what fandom is.

Oh, he knows us so well. ;) I find I'm quite happy to just go along with whatever weird things he's up to this season, though. So far it's been nothing if not interesting!

>87 bragan: I'm really enjoying this season, as well.

A short piece, but the Women's Prize for Fiction notes the extent of gender bias in reading (or well, purchasing) books in the UK:

"Newly-analysed data drawn from Nielsen BookData’s consumer research, collected from a significant sample size of almost 54,000 book purchases in 2023....This new analysis shows that for the top 20 bestselling female writers of fiction and non-fiction purchased in the UK in 2023 (which includes Agatha Christie, Harper Lee, Colleen Hoover, Taylor Jenkins Reid, Lisa Jewell and the non-fiction author Rhonda Byrne), fewer than 20% of purchases were made by men, with the majority of these focused on the classics as opposed to works by contemporary writers. In comparison, 44% of the top 20 bestselling male writers of fiction and non-fiction (including George Orwell, Charles Dickens, Stephen King and James Patterson, as well as Prince Harry, Robert Kiyosaki and James Clear) were bought by women. Just one of the top 20 bestselling female writers of fiction and non-fiction in 2023 was purchased mainly by men – Harper Lee – whereas seven of the top 20 bestselling male writers of fiction and non-fiction in 2023 were purchased mainly by women: Richard Osman, James Patterson, Prince Harry, James Clear, Matt Haig, Peter James and Harlan Coben."

https://womensprize.com/gender-bias-in-mens-reading-habits-still-exists/

>89 rv1988: It is dispiriting. I did an informal look at the top literary prizes (less the Women's Prize for Fiction) over the past few years and discovered that they uniformly went to men by a 3:2 ratio.

>89 rv1988:
I would very much have liked to see the original analysis and data, as IMO this is an appallingly badly worded article, which, taken as written, is seriously faulty in its argument (even if I don't disagree that bias is an issue, and I am a fan of the Women's Prizes).

65% of all books are bought by women, who predominantly buy fiction (65% of all female purchases are of fiction). So one would expect the most popular authors to be those bought by women. Indeed, look at a fiction writer, and 80% of fiction is bought by women. The large majority of those female writers quoted are fiction authors, so it really isn't surprising, in fact it would actually be expected, that 'fewer than 20%' (ie just under 20% is implied) of purchasers of these authors would be men. And if we take the one single non-fiction writer quoted (obviously an exception as she is specifically cited), I would suggest her subject means that her audience is rather more likely to be female than male. (BTW, all figures are US based, extracted from or calculated from a variety of what look like reliable sources).

So what about the male writers? Well, assuming that the article means that 44% of the purchases were by women (what it says is that 44%, i.e. 8.8 of these 20 writers, had books purchased by women, which I suspect is not what they meant!), then, that's quite surprising, because women buy 65% of books, so perhaps it means that actually women are biased against male writers? I'm sure that isn't the case, and I'm not claiming it (this is not sufficient evidence one way or the other), but it certainly doesn't support an argument that men are biased against women writers!

And then we get on to the facts provided that just one top 20 female writer was purchased mainly by men, against 7 male writers mainly bought by women. Given that best selling authors, male or female, are best selling because they have the largest market, women, behind them (again, women buy 65% of all books, including 80% of all fiction), then, again putting genre aside for the present, one could reasonably expect ALL those top 20 male and 20 female authors to be bought predominantly by women. The fact that some are mainly bought by men might suggest that a few writers are so popular amongst men that they overcome this bias (Harper Lee must be phenomenally popular amongst men to overcome the 80-20 fiction bias), but it definitely does NOT show anti-female bias amongst male readers.

In other words, none of this article takes into account the inherent bias in the sample with women so heavily outnumbering men as book buyers, particularly in fiction.

I've put genre aside above, but a few words on that. There is evidence that certain genres of fiction appeal to different genders, so this should really be taken into account. However, with fiction genre, the numbers of female:male buyers is so biased, that even if one particular genre is very popular amongst men, books from that genre are likely to be overwhelmed by those preferred by women - male fiction purchases represent only 20% of fiction and barely 10% of total sales. In non-fiction (representing 47% of the market), genre is likely to be more mportant - the subject is more important than the author (with exceptions!), and I don't think it a coincidence that the non-fiction authors above are writers on 'touchy-feely' subjects: not much in the way of history, sciences, technology etc there - the very sorts of books that are favoured by many men. It takes a female readership to push a non-fiction writer up into that top 20 market - men on their own simply aren't a big enough readership.

None of this is any form of argument to say that there isn't a bias. I actually think there is both ways - men tend to read more male authors, women tend to read more female authors, and that it may well be that it's a heavier bias on the male side. I have little but anecdotal evidence to support that though. I think part of that problem is the bias in what (not who) people read. For instance, only just over a quarter of non-fiction writers are female, which is why the women's non-fiction prize has been introduced (hurrah!). This of course does mean that, currently, somebody who reads a lot of non-fiction (men!) are more likely to read male authors, whatever their preference.

Overall then, what I would argue is that to claim bias based on these figures in this way is simply not valid. These figures, as they stand, simply don't support that argument. If you want to look at bias amongst men, you have to look at what men buy, and if you want to look at bias amongst women you have to look at what women buy; and then compare those purchases against the gender proportions amongst authors of the sorts of books that these men and women read.

Thus, my own reading over the past 15 years or so has been roughly 65-35 fiction/non-fiction (closer to 50-50 the past couple of years), and 60-40 male/female. So am I gender biased in my reading? Very possibly so on those figures? However, that balance is almost entiredly down to non-fiction: in fiction the gender split is almost exactly 50-50, whilst in non-fiction it's 71-29 male/female. And this ties in with my last point in the paragraph above. That might initially looked biased, but once one compares this with the fact that only 26% of published non-fiction is written by women.....!

>92 Willoyd: Indeed, without the original study, this is all speculation. And also, without the original study, all critiques of its methodology are based on unfounded assumptions.

>93 rv1988:
I am not critiquing any part of the report - obviously can't given haven't seen - but the presentation of these results, either by the article writer or the interviewee, as the conclusions presented are not supported by the information they give us. As far as I'm aware, I haven't made any assumptions, just taken the article at face value.

>92 Willoyd: Thank you -- enjoyed your thorough analysis!

The 12 best books of the year so far - from the nyt

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/24/books/best-books-2024-so-far.html?unlocked_ar...

>96 dianeham: Nice list. I'll probably read James next month, the copy of Knife I ordered from a local indie bookshop is waiting for me, and I'll almost certainly read Martyr!, Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here and The Rebel's Clinic in the coming months.

>97 kidzdoc: I read Martyr! and rated it very highly.

>98 dianeham: Thanks, Diane!

The New York Times has a June 5, 2024 article by Maurice Carlos Ruffin listing his recommendations of books to read about New Orleans. The article is behind a paywall, so I'm listing the books below for those of us who don't subscribe to the New York Times.

Economy Hall: The Hidden History of a Free Black Brotherhood, Fatima Shaik

New Orleans Griot: The Tom Dent Reader, Tom Dent, edited by Kalamu ya Salaam

A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole

Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas, Rebecca Solnit and Rebecca Snedeker

The Yellow House, Sarah M. Broom

Bloodline and A Lesson Before Dying, Ernest J. Gaines

Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America, John M. Barry

I Feel to Believe: Collected Columns, Jarvis DeBerry

1 Dead in Attic: After Katrina, Chris Rose

Black Creole Chronicles, Mona Lisa Saloy

I’m Always So Serious, Karisma Price

1,000 Words: A Writer’s Guide to Staying Creative, Focused, and Productive All Year Round and A Reason to See You Again, Jami Attenberg

A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams

edited to fix links

>100 markon: I'd add The American Daughters by Maurice Carlos Ruffin to this list.

>96 dianeham: I enjoy the list, but I am surprised every year at how early such 'best books' assessments start coming out. We get a 'so far' list by June, and then a best books of the year by end of October, even. I can bemoan the plague of the algorithm listicle even though I click, with complicity, on each one.

Perumal Murugan interview: 'Reports of honour killings compelled me to write'

Inter-caste marriages are one of the reasons for honour killings.

I’m an avid reader of Tamil literature and Perumal Murugan is one of my favorite Tamil writers. This article is a report his interview after he was longlisted for the 2023 International Booker for Pyre . I’m listing it here as a number on CR members have expressed interest in finding more about the Indian caste system. Plus of course to encourage readers who have not yet read Perumal Murugan’s novels, to do so.

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:English_snowclones

It may interest users to know what a snowclone even is. According to Wiktionary, it's "a type of cliché which uses an old idiom formulaically placed in a new context." For example, "to fry or not to fry," is a snowclone of Hamlet's, "to be or not to be." I think it's a highly useful word to describe what many authors have done with their book titles, such as Murakami in What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, apparently as a nod to Raymond Carver's What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. It seems that Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet was what inspired Hitchens' title Letters to a Young Contrarian as well as Kozol's Letters to a Young Teacher, among several others. There are many other examples in this appendix.

That is interesting! Thanks

If anyone is interested in long, lingering looks at libraries and bookshelves, this documentary about Umberto Eco should hit the spot.

Here's a trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeIUY9EhZgI

>106 RidgewayGirl: Oh, thanks for this! Wonderful.

This week The New York Times features an interactive list of the best 100 books of the 21st century, "as voted on by 503 novelists, nonfiction writers, poets, critics and other book lovers — with a little help from the staff of The New York Times Book Review." Yesterday examined books 81-100, and today's focus is on books 61-80. The interactive feature allows you to select books that you've read, or ones that you want to. At this point I've read seven of the 40, and selected 17 that I haven't read yet but want to.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/books/best-books-21st-century.html?unlo...

I've only read five of the ones posted so far.

>108 kidzdoc: I've read 14 of the first 40 listed. I'm skeptical of lists like this on principle, but I also have a few more of that list on my tbr.

>108 kidzdoc: Day 2: I've read 4 and have 3 more on my I want to read list.

>108 kidzdoc: I’ve read 6 books on the list (so far) ...

Olive Kitteridge, Exit West, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow ,Pastoralia , Station Eleven, Bring Up the Bodies

... and I want to read 3.
Hurricane Season The Sympathizer The Days of Abandonment

-edited to remove bullets from the cut and paste

>108 kidzdoc: very surprised to see far from the tree on the list. Excellent book with some unfortunatn choices, his research on families with children who are different from their parents is really exceptional

Ive read 7 .

I’ve read 9

13 now. Didn’t like some of today’s books. And I really thought Nickel and Dimed in America was much older. I would have guessed it was from the 1980s.

I'm up to 23 books read now. I will say that the people who chose these books read a lot of the same things I do.

My running total is only 11 now, with a want to read of 3.

I'm a little disappointed that the list is so overwhelmingly weighted to capitol-L Literature; there's virtually no acknowledgement that people also read lighter material for fun. (Not that Literature can't be fun, but you know what I mean...) I've read three of the first sixty, two of which I enjoyed and one of which I detested.

I am at 5 -- with ~30 more that are somewhere in the house (I mean to get to them, honestly)

>119 KeithChaffee: That's pretty common for that kind of lists... Although they do have some genre books for a change...

I've read 20 after today's reveal. I think that as we get closer to the top that number will increase, too. I've actually only added 3 to my "to read" list and they were all already there.

I'm now up to 12 read books. I agree with Jennifer; I assume my number of read books will increase significantly from here on.

I've read 5 so far, and only want to read 6 more. I really don't agree with their choices for "best books." So far.

It sounds like they just cast a wide net and asked lots of people to submit their top ten books published since 2000 and then made the list from which books were mentioned most often. I wonder if they gave them a list to choose from.

The "best books of the 21st century" is quite a claim, even just in terms of language. It should at least have been, "The best books in English". I know some of these are translations, but the books available in English translation don't necessarily reflect the 'best' of that language, rather, they reflect the demands of English-speaking readers.

>125 rv1988: They do sort of talk themselves down from that title in their description of the list, saying something like this is a "first crack" at putting together a list of best books of the century. I think their method was not the best. They asked 500-ish people, and sent them the NYT best 10 books of each year from 2000-2024. I'm sure a lot of people looked through the books starting in 2024 and working backward til they got to 10.

But, I'm always happy to talk about books so I'm enjoying it!
I put a list of my 10 favorite books of the century in our "just lists" thread. I'd love to see everyone else's. There's a place on NYT where readers can submit their own top ten and there will be list compiled from those.

>108 kidzdoc: An interesting list, and a better one than some of 'em. I've read 22, with 7 more sitting on my TBR shelves.

Well, now I'm at 33. This list is a nice, but meaningless one. All it does is compare one person's reading against a list compiled by a group of people. A different set of equally prominent people would result in an entirely different list, but it's fun to look at a stack of books and see how many I've read.

I ended up with 41. A book I really disliked was number 1. But 2, 3, 4 were favorites.

I've read 14. Disliked #1 as well. Really not interested in more than half of these....

I ended up with 47. And an additional 19 are on my shelves. I think I read too much and far too predictably.

I also did not get far with #1, and I also had a very tough time with Gilead. I've read 20 on the list, and it's one more push for me to get to Wolf Hall.

Looks like they chose to use the date of first publication in English to include books in the 21st Century. I agree with >125 rv1988:

I’ve read 6 books on the list:

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao which I do remember with wonder.
The Road which had a very strong impact on me.
Outline which was OK.
The Years which was good but not as good as the first book I read from her, La place.
The Savage Detectives which I gave 4.5 stars but actually remember with something like resentment. The truth is that I felt obliged to like it but it didn't really do much for me.
Persepolis.

And I own 4 that I intend to read, probably, some day

A Visit From the Goon Squad.
Secondhand Time which I started to read but somehow wandered off.
The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis which I have been reading a little bit at a time.
Station Eleven.

I didn't count Atonement which I own but don't intend to finish.

I also have a few on my wishlist, and a few I just added.

I read 40. Shocked that Corrections was on the list, pleasantly surprised far from the tree was. Now lets try a list of the 100 best books in translation in the 21 century so far. Any takers?

>134 cindydavid4: The Ferrante gets to be number one on that list, too.

I've read 18 of them. Definitely don't think some of the 18 I've read deserve to be on there. I agree with Wolf Hall, The Road and Random Family being on there. And probably agree with The Corrections and Atonement being there too.

>134 cindydavid4: A lot of the translations I have read are pre-2000s. And I also noticed that there are many books I read that are decidedly not an American point of view that are written in English - African authors, Caribbean authors, Americans who write in English but are from the Middle East, Japan, China, etc. So "books in translation" does rule out a lot of the world reading I've done. But here is a list of translations that I loved. I would really love to see more lists like this because I am trying to read more translations and I find it challenging.

Top ten of 21st century English translations:
History. A Mess. By Sigrún Pálsdottír (Iceland)
Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson (Norway)
The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru)
Baudolino by Umberto Eco (Italy)
Go, Went, Gone by Jenny Erpenbeck (Germany)
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Takarczuk (Poland)
The Dinner by Herman Koch (Netherlands)
The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohllegen}} (Germany)
Will and Testament by Vigdis Hjorth (Norway)
I Remember You: A Ghost Story by Yrsa Sigurdardottir (Iceland)

>137 japaul22: I’ve been trying to make my own list of favorite 21st century books, and I hesitated over Baudolino. Maybe I should include it.

Also I’m a bit miffed that An Instance of the Fingerpost was published in 1999, because I would really like to include it.

>135 RidgewayGirl: forgot about that, still, number 1?

>137 japaul22: oh great history a mess is another BB I have to read. gotten lots of BBs from this group lately need to back off a bit. But this looks like a scream

this weeks NYer has an excellent article on Norman Maclean who wrote a river runs through it Loved the movie, didn't realize it was a book. Now I need to go back and read it.

Readers Pick
Their 100 Best Booksof the 21st Century

"When the Book Review published a list of the 100 best books of the century, we knew we’d hear from readers who were incensed or gutted or driven wild by grief. How could So-and-So’s book not make the cut?

One of the best things about working in books is just this: the passion of our constituency. No way would we deprive readers of the chance to vote for their own list and make their voices heard.

And so you have. There’s some overlap between your list and ours — we agreed on 39 books. As for the 61 new entries here, what stands out most is that they’re the books that captured cultural moments and sparked lively literary conversations. They’re also great. Enjoy!"

I read 55 most I liked but I still cant figure out the popularity of corrections and Where the Crawdads Sing . and a few others

>142 cindydavid4: I understand the popularity of Where the Crawdads Sing, but found it trite nonsense. I hope there will be a readable version of today's list I can look at soon!

What that "your list" supplement tells me is that people don't understand the difference between "I liked this book" and "this is a good book."

yes but both are in the eyes of the reader. and usually if I like it , its a good book to me

>143 quondame: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/books/reader-best-books-21st-century.ht...

>146 dianeham: thanks diane

>146 dianeham: Thank you. I have read more of these, 19 more. But they have pretty much the same taste in F&SF even though I did like 3 of these vs 1 of the other.

I've read more of the readers' picks (35 vs 19), but I would not consider most of them as best-of-the-century books. I did like seeing Henrietta Lacks on the readers' list.

>149 labfs39: Those are almost identical to my numbers. Yes, Henrietta Lacks should be there.

A small survey to help you decide if you should read The Book of Elsewhere, a book co-written by Hollywood star Keanu Reeves and speculative fiction author China Mieville.

https://lithub.com/keanu-reevess-novel-is-good/

>151 rv1988: I had no idea Keanu Reeves wrote anything! Apparently he created a comic book too. This sounds tempting.

>2 RidgewayGirl: I am looking forward to the next warriors book by Erin Hunter!

"The New York Times recently released a list of the “100 Best Books of the 21st Century.” As is typical for the Times, the list quickly went viral and was widely debated and celebrated on social media.

However, 61 of the writers on this list are American. The two African books on the list are Chimamanda Adichie’s Americanah, which has the word “American” in the title and focuses on the immigrant experience in the US, and The Return by “American-born British-Libyan” writer Hisham Matar. Even though there is a strong presence of female writers and close to ten percent of the writers featured on the list are Black (American) writers, the list is overwhelmingly Euro-American. Italian novelist Elena Ferrante accounts for three of the thirteen translated books on the list. Twenty-three books are published by the same ten authors. Over half of the books on the list are published by the same five publishers in the US.

On social media, where “100 Best Books of the 21st Century” is splashed on colorful graphics in bold letters, users are not seeing it as the “best of, according to the NYT.” The fact that the poll was limited to books published in the United States gets lost in the fine print. The NYT asking American industry insiders to only consider books published in the US has predictably produced an outrageously Euro-American list. Yet, the NYT asks us to take these books as “the most important, influential books of the era,” not as the preference of a limited and statistically insignificant pool of writers, as far as the global literary space is concerned."

https://lithub.com/the-new-york-times-best-books-of-the-century-list-was-an-unfo...

>154 rv1988: Isn't the pool of people asked to contribute to the list the limiting factor? People the NYT editors feel have opinions their readers care about? There are a lot of filters there.

>155 quondame: The excerpt I shared does specifically address this point.

> The fact that the poll was limited to books published in the United States gets lost in the fine print. The NYT asking American industry insiders to only consider books published in the US has predictably produced an outrageously Euro-American list. Yet, the NYT asks us to take these books as “the most important, influential books of the era,” not as the preference of a limited and statistically insignificant pool of writers, as far as the global literary space is concerned."

>156 rv1988: I've seen so many best of lists each produced by a single 30-40 year old white man that any broadening of the base of selectors is welcome. But I don't feel the editorial staff of the NYT literary section is really varied enough to choose better selectors. After all they were hired to a certain set of standards.
We do know that any best of list is flawed. I'd choose genre authors to select from their own genre and weight those choices more than those of authors or influencers not associated with those genres. But even so, I doubt I'd often agree with any list.

>157 quondame: We all eke out our reading under the looming reign of listicles.

Ebook sale at University of Chicago Press
From July 29– August 4, enjoy 75% off all e-books from University of Chicago Press and select distributed publishers

>159 FlorenceArt: Ooh, this could be dangerous. I do like Seagull Books.

>160 labfs39: I was starting to fill my shopping cart, and then I noticed the book that I bought in last year’s sale, that I still haven’t read. Maybe I should give this one a pass.

>161 FlorenceArt: I bought four books at another sale like this earlier this year. I've looked through the one that is mostly pictures, but I haven't read any of the others. I'm going to look at this list, but so far this year I've read 7 of the 20 books I've purchased (and I'm not sure that includes all my ebooks and eaudios.

The British did a little better on their "The 100 best books of the 21st century" published back in 2019:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/sep/21/best-books-of-the-21st-century

37 books were written bu UK authors and 35 by Americans. The two African books at least seem to have African settings/story lines. The list is also overwhelmingly Euro-centric (82 authors), with ten African or African-country, three Asian-country, one Indian-American, two Mexican, one Iranian and one Israeli. Only 11 books are translations into English.

What, imo, the Guardian list does better is that there are no repeat authors and (I think) a greater selection of genre books. Going by the Guardian's descriptions, I counted 37 novels, 3 short story collections, 25 works of non-fiction, 10 memoirs, 3 books of essays, 4 poetry collections, 9 scifi/fantasy, 3 mystery, 3 graphic novels, 3 YA.

>164 ELiz_M: Very true. I was surprised by the number of repetitions on the NYT list.

>164 ELiz_M:
The British did a little better on their "The 100 best books of the 21st century" published back in 2019
Yet, even though a Brit, I've actually read even less of that list (just 7) than of the NYT list (12), although over half of the latter I scored 3 stars or less! Always thought I was well read! (Actually, and being serious for a moment, I think it's because I read a lot of older books, non fiction of the sort barely represented here, and books in translation, which to me shows the limits of these supposedly 'best books' lists, even though they're fun).

>166 Willoyd: I did heaps better on the British list having read 27 of their 100 (cf 7 on The NY Times list), most of these not in audio. I’m actually not surprised as I used to read more British books, and had a wider range of books available to me earlier this century. I used also listen to the TLS podcast regularly. I listen to podcasts less now as I use most of my reading time now on audio.

>164 ELiz_M: I've read 39 of these, which shows that I am very good at reading the kind of book that might end up on a list someday.

I agree that this is a slightly better list, being marginally more inclusive (but far from what it should be) and lacking repetition.

Attacks against Biden throughout his presidential candidacy focused heavily on his age and perceived cognitive state. Trump, who is three years younger than the president at 78, has in the past suggested he believes age isn't the key indicator of abilities for a potential president, saying as recently as May that Biden was "not even close" to being too old.

so now trump says biden wasnt too old?"Trump then pivoted, asserting that Biden is "different" and labeling him a "bad 81-year-old" who is "destroying our country."

Today marks the 100th birthday of the late James Baldwin, my all time favorite author. The Atlantic honors Baldwin with this article that claims his best writing came from letters to friends, colleagues, and perfect strangers:

The Brilliance in James Baldwin's Letters (gift article)

>170 kidzdoc: He is the August author of the month over in Monthly Author reads: https://www.librarything.com/topic/362111 if someone wants to come join us and read him this month :)

>171 AnnieMod: Thanks, Annie! Count me in, as I have the Library of America edition of James Baldwin: Collected Essays. I've already read Notes of a Native Son, Nobody Knows My Name, The Fire Next Time, No Name in the Street, and The Devil Finds Work, but I haven't read the 36 mostly unpublished essays that follow. I may not be able to finish that section of the Library of America edition, but I can at least make a start in them.

One of the things I love about the reviews we post here is how contextual they are, and personal. Someone will say that a book didn't land for them because they were having a bad week, or that one small aspect of the plot resonated for them in a way it might not for the general reader. And as I get to know everyone, I have a better idea of whose tastes overlap with mine, and also who has the potential to surprise me (and who doesn't, but still writes an interesting and lively book summary). Parts of this essay in Lithub by Elisa Gabbert made me think of that—she's talking about literary essays in the wider world, but what are our posts but literary essays written on a smaller, more casual scale?

Elisa Gabbert on the Philosophy and Process Behind the Poem and the Essay

I especially liked this part, though I thought all of it was really good.

I don’t think the “book review” or some strains of academic criticism necessarily allow that much subjective reality in. But a great literary essay is about seeing books through a specific person’s eyes, their particular point of view. I love knowing all the contextual details of a reader’s encounter with a book—how old they were, why they read it (for school, to impress someone?), where they were living, how long it took them. What else was going on—were they happy or despairing at the time? I love knowing there are people like me who remember those things if they remember a book at all, because reading and writing really kind of are the great experiences of my life, the times when I feel most myself, and also most connected.

I'm looking forward to reading the whole book.

>173 lisapeet: Thanks for sharing this. I read the interview, and it's very good. I will look up the book as well: Elisa Gabbert - Any Person is the Only Self

> 173, >174 rv1988: That sounds great. I've added this book to my wish list from my local library.

Interesting article about the varied ways contemporary artists, including writers, play with/subvert history.

Can There Be History Without Facts? - ArtReview

I don't think we have a topic specifically for book-related podcasts, so I'll mention this here: In its newest episode, the "Decoder Ring" podcast, which explores "cultural mysteries," looks at how the classic children's book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie was appropriated by the right wing for its alleged anti-welfare-state message.

https://slate.com/podcasts/decoder-ring/2024/09/how-if-you-give-a-mouse-a-cookie...

>177 KeithChaffee: There’s many children’s books, particularly in the early Golden Books that has socio-political messages in them Henry Penny comes to ind. I can’t remember many of them, but I remember my father explaining to 4 year-old me, what they were getting at.

>178 kjuliff: Oh, sure, and the podcast dives briefly into the history of kid's books getting caught up in culture wars. Their primary instance is Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree, which is loathed by some hyper-militant feminists.

>179 KeithChaffee: I didn’t listen to the whole thing. I’ll have to look at The Giving Tree. Haven’t heard of it.

BTW I think it’s a good idea to post interesting and relevant podcasts here.

>180 kjuliff: If you do, do a google for "the tree who set healthy boundaries"

>181 quondame: I love that!

A reflection on the process and burden of creating an imagined future during a time of climate crisis and existential dread
Henry James is reputed to have said that when you tell a dream, you lose a reader. I’ve never been convinced of that view. But then, I grew up on the vision stories of the Old Testament: Jacob wrestling with an angel; Ezekiel’s winged chariots and fields of dancing bones; the prophet Joel yearning for the day when moral and creative power might transform his people so that young men will see visions and old men dream dreams. These bits of story are among the most strange, compelling and enduring that have come down to us from our ancestors.

Born of Nightmares
Australian writer , Tim Winton

A new collaboration between Los Angeles Public Library and Los Angeles International Airport will allow airport visitors to scan a QR code to get one-week temporary access to the library's digital collection. The campaign is built around "read a banned book," but the temporary access is not limited to any particular set of books.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-09-24/waiting-for-a-flight-at-lax-...

>184 KeithChaffee: I hope they will be adding copy count to the digital holding to support this. More readers is good of course, but more competition for the books I want to read isn't all that welcome!

My hunch would be that anyone accessing the collection via these temporary cards would only be shown titles that are currently available, or perhaps there's a special collection set aside for these specific users. If the access only lasts for a week, those users aren't going to be putting holds on anything. There might be an occasional case where you'd find that the particular backlist title you wanted to read happened to be checked out to an airport temp user, but I can't imagine it's going to be a big problem. No one's wait for the new Louise Erdrich novel is going to be made longer by this program.

THE ELITE COLLEGE STUDENTS WHO CAN’T READ BOOKS
Nicholas Dames has taught Literature Humanities, Columbia University’s required great-books course, since 1998. He loves the job, but it has changed. Over the past decade, students have become overwhelmed by the reading. College kids have never read everything they’re assigned, of course, but this feels different. Dames’s students now seem bewildered by the thought of finishing multiple books a semester. His colleagues have noticed the same problem. Many students no longer arrive at college—even at highly selective, elite colleges—prepared to read books.

wow thats incrediblehow did they manage to get accepted to college?, is there a link for that?

>188 cindydavid4: Click on the title (it’s in caps) in >187 kjuliff:

I could only read part of the article due to a paywall, but I don't find it that surprising given the state of the average US education system today.

>190 labfs39: I do subscribe to The Atlantic, which allows me to share articles with others:

The Elite College Students Who Can't Read Books

>191 kidzdoc: Thanks, Darryl.

For more than two decades, new educational initiatives such as No Child Left Behind and Common Core emphasized informational texts and standardized tests. Teachers at many schools shifted from books to short informational passages, followed by questions about the author’s main idea—mimicking the format of standardized reading-comprehension tests.

It's unfortunate that teaching to the test is taking place in schools at the same time that technology is luring kids away from books. A double whammy.

She Shared Her Notes with John Steinbeck. It was Her Novel’s Undoing.

I almost cried reading this. I love Steinbeck, how could he do this?

>192 labfs39: wow, I know standardized testing was awful, and disagreed with NCLB for many reasons, but never put the reading part together. No wonder they arent reading. and I dont see a way to fix it. Rep legislators certainly arent going to touch it; They like their population to be semi literate.

>187 kjuliff: I can't help but wonder if the issue here might be the "elite" part. Of course there are scholarship students and solidly middle class students at elite institutions, but so many young people have to stagger out their education through community colleges and don't get to 4yr institutions until later. Whereas a number economically privileged freshmen have not had to exert themselves to be placed where they are.

I interact online with many young people who are prolific readers, and most of them did not have a clear shot at an elite college.

>187 kjuliff: Our public school is reading whole books at the honors level. I don't have knowledge of the general English syllabus. My 14 year old has already read all of Fahrenheit 451 this year and is starting Emily Wilson's translation of the Odyssey.

But, I do think that there is less reading, generally, than there used to be. Education has changed, as it always does. There is a big emphasis on teaching social and life skills. There is also a huge emphasis on mental health. Our school allows one retake for all exams and quizzes and the grade will be replaced with the new grade. Assignments can be turned in up to two weeks late and only be docked 10%. For a while, zeros were not allowed - everyone got at least a 50% even if an assignment wasn't turned in (this has been changed). Everything seems to be geared to helping kids succeed, but not necessarily teaching them the skills to succeed - instead just making it easier.

Our school district is enormous (180,000 students) and incredibly diverse, both in terms of cultural/ethnic background and socio-economic levels. There are amazing things about this, but it also is hard to teach such a diverse population fairly and evenly. Equity is a huge buzz word and some of the ways it's addressed I believe in and some I don't.

Despite all of this, I am impressed with a lot of the aspects of my childrens' education so far. Though I don't like a lot of these big policies I've mentioned, their individual teachers, curriculum, and extra-curriculars are impressive and I think teaching them a lot of life skills that I didn't get in school.

We've just had to be clear with our kids that the retakes and late assignments aren't an option for them. ;-)

>196 japaul22: I think the public school your children go to is amazing, Jennifer. Unfortunately, I also think it is an outlier. Just for curiosities sake, what does the school rank on GreatSchools.org? Our local schools are 4s (out of 10). Below average in other words, and average is nothing to brag about IMO. My nephew graduated not having read a single novel in high school.

>197 labfs39: I don't love the great schools ratings. Our elementary school is only a 4/10, but it's because we have a large immigrant population. We have over 37 languages spoken in homes. So sometimes it takes a while for these kids to catch up in terms of the standardized testing that largely makes up the great schools ratings. But the kids are succeeding and improving and the community aspect of our school is great.

By the time we get to high school, our high school has a 8/10 great schools rating. It's #10 in the state of Virginia.

It's not a perfect situation because it's such a large school. It's easy for kids to get lost, but at the same time, there are so many offerings in so many different realms because it's large. Pros and cons . . .

It will be interesting to see if my kids pick a small college or giant university when it comes time for that. There are lots of colleges smaller than their high school of 2900 kids!

I live in Massachusetts, where one of the ballot initiatives this election is to get rid of the MCAS as a graduation requirement. I'm leaning toward a no vote on that - I don't think lowering standards is neccessarily the answer - but it is an interesting debate.

>199 Julie_in_the_Library: MCAS?

It's a required test in Massachusetts that you have to pass to graduate high school.

Per the MA department of education, "the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System is a set of statewide standardized tests. Students in grades 3-8 and 10 take MCAS tests in English language arts and mathematics; students in grades 5, 8, and one high school grade (usually grade 9 or 10) take a science MCAS test. Students in grade 8 take a civics MCAS test. State law requires that high school students meet the Competency Determination (CD) standard in order to graduate, which is usually done by earning a passing score on MCAS tests."

>201 Julie_in_the_Library: I’d vote no for that. Can’t see any upside of getting rid of it

The traditional problem with a test like that is that students are taught how to pass the test. Not how to study, not anything that isn't specifically on the test - just what they need to know to pass that test. Which usually leaves them sorely unprepared for college, let alone adult life. It depends on the teacher and the school how bad the teaching to the test is for any individual...but it's a real problem. Worse if the test is multiple choice than if it's essay or similar.

>203 jjmcgaffey: What do you mean, “tests like that”? And if not tests, how can you fairly evaluate performance, skills and aptitude? Or should we have no measurement at all?

>204 kjuliff: Measurement is fine. The problem lies in what's being measured. Too often, when students are required to pass standardized tests, the pressure on the teachers to make sure they do so means that things that should be part of the curriculum get set aside while the students are taught how to take standardized tests. And the reason that pressure on the teachers exists is, in too many states, that school funding depends on how well their students do on those tests.

What you wind up with, to exaggerate only mildly, is English classes that teach test vocabulary instead of Shakespeare and math classes that teach test word problems instead of algebra. Because if the teachers "waste time" on curriculum -- and that is how some school administrators describe it -- instead of teaching to the test, the school will lose money.

>205 KeithChaffee: Assume you are talking about American systems.
It’s a difficult problem. Unfortunately the type of measurement has become politicized.

Samantha Harvey has won the Booker Prize for Orbital. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/nov/12/orbital-by-samantha-harvey-wins-bo...

This might be of interest. BBC Radio 4 did brief interviews with all the Booker Prize nominees: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/19KYG3sjCdXZVJmnnvp23Zn/booker-prize-2...

>207 rv1988: wow, really? It was an interesting book, but didnt see it as the winner. thought James made more of an impact

>208 cindydavid4: I was surprised too. I think the judges wanted to give the prize to a woman. Held was too deep for them. Creation Lake too whacky and The Safekeeping not up to standard. As for SYD, I have no opinion as I couldn’t buy it in audio.

>208 cindydavid4:, >209 kjuliff:
I suspect Orbital has made more of an impact here than it has in the States, where it's inevitable James will cut through more. I've not read all of them, but of those I have read, my views differ rather: Creation Lake was OK, but underwhelming with a weak ending, so much so I'm not especially motivated to try anything else by Kushner; I didn't find it too whacky, just that this was the one for me 'not up to standard'; The Safekeep was excellent, but Orbital, was outstanding, my favourite fiction so far this year. Discussing it with my local bookshop owner (who equally loved it), we both agreed that it would take something very special to beat it. James may well be, and I'll find out later as I'm saving it until I've reread Huck Finn (although said owner had read it, really rated it, but still felt Orbital should win); I'm looking forward to it, and IMO The Trees should have won in 2022 (and might have done with a stronger ending). Ladbrokes had James and Orbital as equal favourites.

>210 Willoyd: That's a very interesting take, Will; thanks for that. I don't suppose we'll know, but I had wondered if James's nomination for the National Book Award for Fiction, which will announced here in the US next Wednesday, could have played a minor role in Orbital winning the Booker Prize. Granted, I loved both books essentially equally, and said in my review that I would be happy if Orbital won, and I seriously doubt that the Booker judges consulted the NBA judges to get their take on which book they were leaning forwards.

Now that it's been a few weeks since I read both books I would rate Orbital over James in a photo finish, instead of the other way around as I had originally done.

In Jamie Oliver pulls children’s book from shelves after criticism for ‘stereotyping’ Indigenous Australians The Guardian outlines the reason that celebrity chef James Oliver has effectively banned his own book, Billy and the Epic Escape.

The children’s book was written without any consultation with any indigenous Australians group. I was quite shocked to read his trivialization of Australian’s “Stolen Generation”. From 1910 to the 1970s Aboriginal children were forcibly removed from their families and adopted into “white” homes by state governments, churches and welfare bodies The intent was “to breed the black”out of the race. Well-dramatized in the film adaptation of The Rabbit Proof Fence

There are other missteps - in the way the spiritual beliefs of the first Australians are described as magical thinking, linguistic errors, and overall in the stereotyping of the First Nations people.

I’m glad Oliver has apologized and withdrawn his book.

>212 kjuliff: I'd seen that and it surprised me that not a single person along the way suggested that the book be vetted by an indigenous Australian. This is a pretty common thing, especially in regards to Childrens and YA lit. A bunch of people dropped the ball here, and it's an important reminder as to why it's important to have a diversity of people at all levels of the publishing process.

I can't remember who was reading about Ernest Shackleton's Endurance, but did you see this?

A New 3D Scan, Created from 25,000 High-Resolution Images, Reveals the Remarkably Well-Preserved Wreck of Shackleton’s Endurance

Pretty cool.

their is also an Endurance kit at lego

>215 lisapeet: That's amazing. Cold is such a good preserving agent. This was "cool" too: A 35,000-Year-Old Saber-Toothed Cub Was Unearthed in Siberia—and It Still Had Its Whiskers and Claws

At Defector, a lovely piece from Justin Ellis on recipes, change, and family history: "When Does a Recipe Become Your Own?"

https://defector.com/when-does-a-recipe-become-your-own

"Brain rot" has been chosen as Oxford Word of the Year. Any thoughts? I prefer the runner-up, "slop," because I hate AI.

https://corp.oup.com/word-of-the-year

What Can We Learn From the C.E.O. Shooting Suspect’s Goodreads History?

It’s possible that one of those books — or some combination of them — helped drive him toward violence. Reading sometimes has that effect, and it’s chilling to consider that some of the most normie products of modern publishing might have fed a homicidal imagination. But reading can also contain and moderate antisocial impulses; a reader absorbed in a book is, at least for the moment, on the safe side of the boundary between thought and action It’s possible that one of those books — or some combination of them — helped drive him toward violence. Reading sometimes has that effect, and it’s chilling to consider that some of the most normie products of modern publishing might have fed a homicidal imagination. But reading can also contain and moderate antisocial impulses; a reader absorbed in a book is, at least for the moment, on the safe side of the boundary between thought and action.

and so it starts

>220 cindydavid4: Luigi Mangione sought out the books. The books didn’t seek out him.

>220 cindydavid4: NYT - Months Before C.E.O.’s Killing, the Suspect Went Silent. Where Was He?

>221 kjuliff: yes

This is an insightful piece about renowned author Dan Brown and why he should be respected.

https://onehundredpages.wordpress.com/2013/06/12/dont-make-fun-of-renowned-dan-b...

The critics said his writing was clumsy, ungrammatical, repetitive and repetitive. They said it was full of unnecessary tautology. They said his prose was swamped in a sea of mixed metaphors. For some reason they found something funny in sentences such as “His eyes went white, like a shark about to attack.” They even say my books are packed with banal and superfluous description, thought the 5ft 9in man. He particularly hated it when they said his imagery was nonsensical. It made his insect eyes flash like a rocket.

Not really an article as such, but there's a blog that collects links to all the 'best of 2024' book lists in one place. In case anyone is interested. I personally find that I can't keep or be bothered by all the lists, but sometimes I like to browse specific/niche lists that I wouldn't come across otherwise. The blog author keeps updating the list into next year as well.

https://largeheartedboy.com/2024/11/27/essential-and-interesting-best-books-of-2...

e.g. 100 notable African books from 2024 https://brittlepaper.com/2024/12/announcing-the-100-notable-african-books-of-202...

best books about medieval history from 2024 https://www.medievalists.net/2024/12/best-medieval-books-of-2024/

>224 RidgewayGirl: Lol, and yet this guy's books are ubiquitous. When sorting books for the Friends of the Library, we routinely tossed his books, because we would be inundated with them.

>225 rv1988: Thanks, Rasdhar!

>225 rv1988: Best Medieval Books of 2024 I never heard about this group before. Afraid to jump in for I suspect Ill fall into a rabbits hole again.....we'll see

>228 cindydavid4: I'm all about medieval stuff, but I only took one book away from that list to read....

>225 rv1988: That list is scary. So many lists! But here’s one it doesn’t list 😉

Reactor Mag’s reviewers choice in 2024

>230 FlorenceArt: That's an interesting list of mostly books I don't know anything about. Thanks for the link!

>231 RidgewayGirl: Same here! I need to actually read the whole article but some of the books definitely sound interesting.

>231 RidgewayGirl:, >232 FlorenceArt: I've read and enjoyed only one title mentioned in that list - The ministry of time by Kaliane Bradley

And Granta had a list too:

Books of the Year 2024 | Granta