The firm’s most recent rankings, published in September, showed that the top publisher on Facebook in August 2018 was not CNN, Fox News, the BBC, or BuzzFeed—but a Manchester, U.K.–based site called LADbible. Fourth was one called Unilad, also based in Manchester. Fifth, London-based tabloid the Daily Mail. Trusted sources, indeed. The New York Times’ John Herrman and Kevin Roose highlighted another NewsWhip list that showed LADbible had three of the 10 most popular stories on Facebook in the first week of September.
Category: words
Too Much Information In The World? That’s Why We Need Novels
“Too much information creates numbness. Then we stop feeling. Then we stop caring. Refugees become mere numbers, anyone who is different becomes a category, an abstraction. It is not a coincidence that all populist movements are essentially against plurality, against diversity. In creating dualistic frameworks and polarising society, they know they can spread numbness faster. The novel matters because it punches little holes in the wall of indifference that surrounds us. Novels have to swim against the tide. And this was never more clear than it is today.”
The Instagram Poets – Populist Democracy Or Huckster Scams?
These stories map an increasingly egalitarian poetry landscape. In place of the traditional gatekeeping system is a supportive, welcoming environment, particularly for marginalized voices. Purveyors of female empowerment and romantic expression like Kaur, Nikita Gill and Yrsa Daley-Ward flourished in this ecosystem. Instagram poets who might not get a second look from the predominantly white literary establishment have risen to prominence on their own. The trend is democratizing, both for writers and readers.
Audiobooks: The Pros And Cons
“Studies from experts strongly support both sides. Personal conversations with friends (not experts) vary from indifference, strong supporters and audiobook opposers. … We’re not sure what to believe, so we made a pros and cons list.”
Why We Need An Award For Writers Who Start Later In Life
Gillian Slovo writes about why she and the Royal Society of Literature have established the new Christopher Bland Prize, a £10,000 award for a first-time author over age 50.
Has Unstable Leadership Doomed Barnes & Noble?
The industry could have a lot riding on the next 18 months at Barnes and Noble. After years of upheaval and disappointing sales, it’s not clear whether Barnes and Noble can continue as a viable, if diminished, retail alternative to Amazon, or if, as our anonymous curmudgeon suggests, its time to start planning a funeral.
When ‘Crossworditis’ Was Like Reefer Madness
In a feature introducing The Atlantic‘s new daily online mini-crossword, Adrienne LaFrance looks back to the pearl-clutching that accompanied the appearance, and rapid popularity, of crossword puzzles in newspapers just over a century ago. ” Doctors warned of the dreaded ‘crossword-puzzle headache.’ … Puzzles were banned in courthouses, where distracted public officials played on the job. … Newspapers reported an uptick of women divorcing puzzle-obsessed husbands. … People worried that puzzles would replace literature, that the utility of three-letter words — gnu! emu! eel! — would rewire people’s brains.”
Wolf Hall — The Real One — Located By Archaeologists
The novel Wolf Hall, the first volume of Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell/Henry VIII trilogy, took its name from the country estate of Jane Seymour’s family. “Now original features of the 16th-century property have been uncovered by a team of archaeologists and historians, including a network of brick-built sewers and some of the foundations of two towers.” The remains were found on the grounds of (the much later) Wolf Hall Estate in Wiltshire, which still belongs to Seymour descendants.
Kuwait Is On A Book-Banning Binge (They’ve Even Banned ‘The Little Mermaid’)
“In August, the government acknowledged that it had banned 4,390 books since 2014, hundreds of them this year, including many works of literature that had once been considered untouchable, setting off street demonstrations and online protests.” Among the Western titles on the censors’ list are One Hundred Years of Solitude, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and 1984 (in one Arabic translation but not another). As for poor little mermaid Ariel? As one activist says, “There are no hijab-wearing mermaids. The powers that be thought her dress was promiscuous. It’s humiliating.”
Jacob Weisberg Recalls The Founding Of Slate Magazine
“Remember, when we started, you didn’t just have to tell people what an internet magazine was. You usually had to tell them what the internet was. We thought Slate would be like a weekly magazine and people would print it out, and we mainly thought of the web as kind of an instant distribution mechanism.”