If we concede that books can be therapeutic, then it seems appropriate to explore the potential pitfalls of asking literature to serve that cause. Of initial concern is the inherent presumptuousness of the endeavor.
Category: words
John Milton’s Satan Is A Superhero
Stephen Akey: “My hero is fearless, proud, resolute, farseeing, self-sacrificing, and profoundly engaged in the struggle against tyranny and oppression. He’s also several hundred feet tall (when he wants to be), [and] does celestial cartwheels when flying between the earth and sun.”
Sendak Estate V. Rosenbach Museum Verdict Isn’t So Simple
The judge’s decision in the case mostly favored Sendak’s executors, but not entirely – and there’s more about the museum-library in the author’s will than we’ve seen in earlier reports. Peter Dobrin digs into the details.
Your Boss Has To Give You Time Off To Read, According To United Arab Emirates’ New Literacy Law
What’s more, every newborn’s family will get a “knowledge briefcase,” taxes will be eliminated on publishing, and it will be illegal to destroy books. (So now we know where to send all those copies of Fifty Shades of Grey that secondhand bookstores won’t take.)
Why Dictionaries Are A Form Of Perfection
“Maybe the most reassuring thing about a dictionary is its finite nature. A small dictionary contains all the words you need to know, and a really big one seems to contain all the words in existence. Having one nearby seems to say that the language has boundaries, and reasonable ones at that. It might surprise dictionary-owners to know that most lexicographers do not think of their subject in this way at all.”
It Is Harder To Write Funny Stuff Than Serious Stuff? (Of Course)
James Parker: “Oh, much. Much! … My thoughts do not have wings. They are auk-like.”
Rivka Galchen: “I’m naturally inclined to see comic writing as not only more difficult, but also more ethical, more honest, more essential and even more serious.”
Maurice Sendak’s Estate Wins Lawsuit Against Small Museum
Over the years, Sendak had deposited thousands of books and drawings at the Rosenbach Museum and Library in Philadelphia. But Sendak never formally gave them to the Rosenbach, and after he died in 2012, his executors decided they wanted most of that collection back. So the Rosenbach sued the estate. Now the judge’s ruling has arrived.
‘It Hit Me Right In The Chest, It’s Still Hitting Me’: Elena Ferrante On The Most Terrible Sentence In ‘Madame Bovary’
“I certainly saw myself in Berthe Bovary, Emma and Charles’s daughter, and felt a jolt. I knew that I had my eyes on a page, I could see the words clearly, yet it seemed to me that I had approached my mother just as Berthe tried to approach Emma.”
Want To Write A Bestseller? This Algorithm Is Startlingly Accurate In Predicting How To Do It
“After four years of work, Jodie Archer, a former acquisitions editor, and Matthew Jockers, an academic specializing in computational analysis of style, have been able to ‘predict’ which books were bestsellers and which were not with ‘an average accuracy of 80 percent.’ This means that, out of a randomly selected group of 50 bestsellers and 50 non-bestsellers, the algorithm would predict 40 of each correctly.”
Want To Read This Margaret Atwood Story? You’ll Have To Wait 100 Years
The Future Library is part working library, part conceptual art project, part investment in unborn generations of readers. Starting with Margaret Atwood, a different author will contribute a work to the vault each year, with none to be opened until 2114.