Category: words

Only 32% of British children under 13 are read to daily by an adult, for pleasure, down four percentage points on the previous year, and nine percentage points down on 2012. Most parents stop reading to their child by the age of eight, with just 19% of eight to 10-year-olds read to daily by an adult, across all socio-economic groups, down 3% on last year. Boys were less likely to be read to daily than girls at 14%, compared with 24%. – The Guardian

In many ways, stories are uncannily similar to living organisms. They seem to have their own interests. They compel us to share them and, once told, they begin to grow and change, often becoming longer and more elaborate. They compete with one another for our attention—for the opportunity to reach as many minds as possible. They find each other, intermingle, and multiply. – Harper’s

The Swedish Academy has confirmed that a second prize will be awarded this fall to make up for the postponement caused by last year’s messy scandal. (This had been announced at the time, but some doubt had subsequently arisen.) – The Guardian

Elsevier still made $1.17 billion in publishing in 2017, which is precisely the problem, according to its critics. At its loftiest, academic publishing is supposed to be about disseminating hard-won knowledge. But publishers charge hefty subscription fees, making that knowledge often inaccessible to researchers at all but the wealthiest institutions. Last year, the University of California paid Elsevier $11 million. – The Atlantic

By the time of her early death, she had been the subject of many dark rumors, most of which she had initiated. But Landon was one of the first modern poets, who “explored the art of performative self-creation in the commercial press—an art fated to become a habit in the social-media age—and she was one of the first to pay its costs. Neither sincere in a 19th-century sense nor confessional in a 20th-century one, L.E.L.’s signature style was a curiously opaque self-obsession.” – The Atlantic

Nikki Darling, author of Fade Into You, about her book and LA: “When communities of color are shown, it’s usually associated with violence and turmoil. In my lived experience, all sections of the city contain a swirled variance of different lived realities, histories, and ancestries. People have lived here long before Mulholland Drive and Raymond Chandler. Los Angeles is as old as the fault lines that run beneath it. I wanted to shake the city loose from its static image.” – LitHub

When you have infinite possibilities but not infinite storage, you have to figure out which books to take on, and which to weed. This is the story of the New York Public Library and its acquisitions team of 16 highly trainde readers, who, “from inside a squat, brick building in Long Island City, Queens, are ‘fighting for good books,’ said Michael Santangelo, the deputy director of collection management.” – The New York Times

Ouch. “This one had the vague promise of turning into a tenure-track job. It’s a promise that hiring committees often make for naive reasons, knowing that they can’t keep it. I was aware of this and yet I fell for it every time. Gullibility is key to the tenure-track rat race. But stepping into the office without books in hand, I realized that this was the last leg of the trip. I felt it in the pit of my stomach where my undiagnosable, restlessly churning cramps lived. There was no point in telling myself that I was just traveling light.” – LitHub