Category: words

What’s The Novel For The Social Media Age? ‘Fahrenheit 451’

Ramin Bahrani (who may not be objective, as he has directed a film adaptation of the Bradbury book): “In the novel, he imagined a world where people are entertained day and night by staring at giant wall screens in their homes. They interact with their ‘friends’ through these screens, listening to them via ‘Seashells’ – Bradbury’s version of Apple’s wireless AirPods – inserted in their ears.”

At Last! Backlash Begins Against Overuse Of Exclamation Points

“More likely than not, most people – women in particular – do it to make sure their message reads as friendly and not too … insert-negative-quality-here: corrective, cold, aggressive. Perhaps the irony is that the punctuation itself is too much. And if conversations taking place recently on social media are any indication, there may be a revolt brewing that could pry those exclamation points from our prose, particularly in work-related communications, in favor of more nuanced language on the internet.”

Bookstore Pulls Books By Junot Diaz, Sherman Alexie, David Foster Wallace From Shelves

Says Allison Krzanowski, co-owner of Quill Books & Beverage in Westbrook, Maine, “There are plenty of authors who aren’t sexually assaulting and sexually harassing people, so we make more space for them by removing the ones who are. … There have been some people who think we are banning books, and to that, I say it is our choice not to carry products. … We have a ‘safe space’ commitment, and that extends to our shelves.”

Science Reveals: How Words Should Be Spaced

Somewrittenlanguageshavenospacesatalland o thers re quire a space be tween ev e ry syl la ble. Ob viously, thereneed to be standards. Unless    you’re doing avant – garde po e try, or    something , you  can’tjustspacew ords ho w e v   e    r   y      o        u            want.     That would be insanity. Or at least, obnoxious. Enter three psychology researchers from Skidmore College, who decided it’s time for modern science to sort this out once and for all.

The Invention Of Young-Adult Fiction And The New Teenage Market It Served

“Targeted at readers 12 to 18 years old, [the genre] sprang into being near the end of the turbulent decade of the 1960s – in 1967, to be specific, a year that saw the publication of two seminal novels for young readers: S. E. Hinton’s The Outsiders and Robert Lipsyte’s The Contender. … Before these two novels, literature for 12- to 18-year-olds was about as realistic as a Norman Rockwell painting.”

In The Wake Of #MeToo, Publishers Are Adding Morality Clauses To Writers’ Contracts

“Until recently, the term ‘moral turpitude’ is not one that crossed the lips of too many people in book publishing. But Bill O’Reilly, Milo Yiannopoulos, Sherman Alexie, Jay Asher, and James Dashner changed all that. … Major publishers are increasingly inserting language into their contracts – referred to as morality clauses – that allows them to terminate agreements in response to a broad range of behavior by authors. And agents, most of whom spoke with PW on the condition of anonymity, say the change is worrying in an industry built on a commitment to defending free speech.”