Category: words

A History Of Miss Havisham

One early critic of Dickens’s Great Expectations called the character “a foolish, senseless, fantastical, impossible humbug”; later, another critic wrote that “living types have already been pointed out that claim resemblance [to her].” Carrie Frye suggests that this “seems like a fitting jumping-off point for exploring how Miss Havisham came to be in the world: as a fantastical, impossible creature … clearly based on real-life people.”

On College Campuses, A Movement To Get Rid Of Student Newspapers

“As student activists call for the institutions around them to confront issues of diversity and inclusion, campus newspapers have been critiqued as well. But activists are not just calling for reform—editors of campus papers are struggling to improve their papers alongside student bodies that, in some cases, would like to see student newspapers as an institution disappear.”

Do Readers Still Care Which Magazine Published The Story They Just Read?

“As the internet solidifies its role as a leading news source amid continued declines in print, news organization homepages are losing traction. Magazine stories are increasingly unmoored from the outlets that published them, and from the brands that once all but guaranteed their legitimacy. In the US, more than 60 percent of social media users now access news through platforms like Facebook and Twitter, and news organizations harvest nearly half their traffic from social media.”

A History Of How The Word Processor Took Over as The Writing Machine Of Choice

“One thing that was really different about word processing is that there were dozens and dozens of word-processing options, dozens and dozens of systems and software and formats, all of them incompatible and comparatively expensive. If you made a bad choice, that would have been a real setback for a writer. So realizing what you needed, and shopping for a computer—that in and of itself was a barrier as much as any big sense of technophobia.”

The Hong Kong Booksellers Who Were Kidnapped By Chinese Police: A Follow-Up

“Five booksellers from Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay Books disappeared in 2015, of whom Lam [Wing-kee] was the fourth to reappear (leaving only one, Swedish citizen Gui Minhai, still in PRC custody). … Reactions since Lam’s release have been mixed. On June 17, he led thousands of protestors through the streets of Hong Kong.” But the three others who were held and have been released have accused Lam of lying.

An Algorithm Says This Book Should Be The Ultimate Bestseller (So Why Didn’t It Make Any Bestseller Lists?)

“The algorithm looks at themes, plot, character, setting, and also the frequencies of tiny but significant markers of style. The ‘bestseller-ometer’ then makes predictions, picking out which specific combinations of these features will resonate with readers. The authors claim that it is correct ‘over eighty percent of the time’.” But the only book to score 100% from the algorithm has had only middling sales.

Reading Conrad With Convicts: Leading A Book Club In A Maximum-Security Prison

“I’ve always believed that, to remain open to the surprises and contingencies offered by literature, you have to value ignorance more than self-confidence. … The prisoners, however, see my openness as wishy-washy. If this is what you get from literature, they tell me, maybe it’s better to leave it alone. Who wants to be uncertain and indecisive? At least they know where they stand. That may very well be true, I reply, but look where it’s got you.”