Category: words

There are challenges, of course – getting machines to understand a plot arc, let alone metaphor or irony. But scientists are working on three programs – Scheherazade, the What-If Machine, and Metaphor Magnet – to tackle these problems. Tom Meltzer talks to the creators, while Nicholas Lezard reviews the stories.

“[The novel] comes in two different versions, enabling its readers to experience its two parts – one about a Renaissance Italian fresco painter, one about a contemporary teenager whose mother has recently died – in a different order.” The award, now in its second year, recognizes fiction that experiments with or expands the novel form.

“Neither side gave details of the deal, but both pronounced themselves happy with the terms. Hachette, the fourth largest publisher, won the ability to set the prices for its e-books, which was a major contention in the fight.” Instead, Amazon gets to offer “specific financial incentives for Hachette to deliver lower prices.”

“It was only after the Grimms published two editions primarily for adults that they changed their attitude and decided to produce a shorter edition for middle-class families.” Wait until you see how Cinderella’s stepsisters made their feet fit into the golden slipper.

At least Richard Flanagan’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North is in impressive company: fellow nominees for this year’s dubious honor include Haruki Murakami, Michael Cunningham, and BBC news presenter Kirsty Wark.

During the 1870s and 1880s in the U.S., there developed a huge body of stories, plays, and poetry written about – and often by – telegraph operators. “There’s something incredibly modern about these amateur stories and the way they handle technology, the influence of corporations, gender, and love in the time of hyperconnection.”

“In an original essay, Philip Roth considers the experience of rereading his classic novel Portnoy’s Complaint, first published 45 years ago, in 1969. Six other authors, including Lydia Davis, Marilynne Robinson and George Saunders, also reflect on their own earlier works.”

“Sometime [in 1996] … Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos called a meeting in Seattle. He had a simple but potentially massive proposition. Amazon, then a 2-year-old company that sold only new books, wanted to expand into the used-books market – and Bezos wanted Powell’s to be its sole supplier. … There was a catch.”

“Coming just months after the museum’s reopening following a vast refurbishment,” a £4 million cut in annual funding “will result in the loss of up to eighty jobs” and a loss of access, for both academics and the public, to a major collection of documents and photos from World War I and all of Britain’s subsequent wars.

“Through a service called ‘Pasporta Servo,’ speakers of this artificial language invented over a century ago have access to a directory of hosts from all corners of the globe, willing to open their houses free to promote a tongue with no home of its own.”