Category: words

“Aside from its astute selection of moving detail, art is constantly in the business of manipulating our emotions, as if this were an end in itself. This, after all, was Plato’s objection to the arts and every kind of artistic effect — that it was manipulative and potentially mendacious.”

“In the literary world, the same has been true: people make decisions about which stories to tell; they make decisions about who gets to tell those stories, and to what kind of audience, which sends a subconscious message to readers. If I don’t see your story, then you must not exist; if I don’t see your story, that means it doesn’t deserve to be seen.”

“You would think our sole purpose as writers at these panels is to broaden the understanding of white people, when we could you know, talk about writing. Worse, it’s the same talk we gave last year, and the year before that, and the year before that one, going back years, and decades. Either we’re not speaking loud enough, or clear enough, or maybe nobody is listening. Maybe a diversity panel should be all white.”

“You may have heard of the Bad Sex in Fiction Award, but isn’t it about time we started rewarding good sex in literature? That’s exactly what Erotic Review [magazine] decided, prompting them to create the Good Sex in Fiction Award. And while the Bad Sex in Fiction long list is certainly worth a few laughs, let’s all be honest: It’s the Good Sex in Fiction long list that you’re going to want to go out and read.”

“The Hanjin Shipping Company, which filed for bankruptcy in August, has seen dozens of its ships – some carrying significant orders from trade houses – stranded at sea or seized by creditors. Affected publishers range from St. Martin’s Press to W.W. Norton to Lee & Low.”

“The symbol of reading was, perhaps, bigger than the act of reading itself. Individuals sought to capture their devotion to books through painted portraits that depicted them deeply absorbed in reading a text. Paintings of people reading and portraits of individuals embracing a book became widespread in Renaissance art.”

The Forme of Cury features nearly 200 recipes from a feast Richard and his uncle, John of Gaunt, held in September of that year. (includes 629-year-old dessert recipe)

“Books by two journalists, one a Pulitzer prizewinner, the other a Nobel laureate, have made it to the shortlist announced on Monday for the £30,000 Baillie Gifford prize for non-fiction.”

“Is it really true that the American idiom ‘say uncle’ emerged from the bullying of a poor parrot – and murder most fowl? Has there been a more beknighted or benighted cut of beef than the ‘sirloin’ – at least when it comes to the word’s origin? … When it comes to the strange history of certain linguistic oddities, Jesus H. Christ (and where did the ‘H’ come from, exactly?), linguists, you got some ‘splainin’ to do!”

“The last native speaker of Myaamia died in the 1960s. The language had been spoken by the Myaamia people, Native Americans who originally lived in what is now Indiana. Also known as the Miami, they were forcibly relocated twice in the 19th century, and ended up scattered throughout the Midwest and beyond … By the 1980s, linguists and tribe members alike thought the language was gone. But then Daryl Baldwin came along.”