Will social media and aggregated preferences sweep away book reviewing and literary culture? There’s nothing new about the death of literatureThe writer Caleb Crain is unhappy about “the intrusion of counting into the life of literature”. He believes that big data and predictive-taste algorithms are cutting humans “out of the loop”, and that social media are undermining our faith in “the mental states of other people” when those inner states aren’t acknowledged in tweets and likes. It seems we are mired in “a new kind of disenchantment”, he says, which is devolving our sense of literary merit. As big data blurs personal opinion into preference aggregates, and as Twitter-propelled article-surfing destroys reviewing communities and the authority of critics alike, Crain contends, we have no choice but to “declare war on counting”. So that, you know, “literature will survive”. Related: Computer says no: Amazon uses AI to combat fake reviews Bad criticism in public is a nuisance. Does it spell the end of days? Hardly [S]uddenly the cosmos seems like one vast plan after all, patterned in such a way that the novel you’re reading at bedtime connects to your astronomy lecture, connects to what you heard on NPR, connects to what your friend discusses in the cafeteria at lunch – and then briefly it’s as if the lid has come off the world, as if the world were a dollhouse, and you can glimpse what it would be like to see it whole, from above – a vertiginous magnificence. Continue... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2015-08-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Reading her audiobook memoir, “How to Say Babylon,” the poet gives voice to her Jamaican roots, her early ambition and the Rastafari father who would have quashed it. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2024-01-05 13:11:49 UTC ]
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An inside look at the publication process for the PEN/Hemingway Award-winning author's second novel Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-01-05 05:00:00 UTC ]
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In their lifetimes, these authors’ work went largely unappreciated. These books honor their literary legacies. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-01-04 05:00:00 UTC ]
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This bracing anthology of Christopher Hitchens’s work for The London Review of Books is just the ticket. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2024-01-01 10:02:01 UTC ]
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In “Alice Sadie Celine,” Sarah Blakley-Cartwright’s first novel for adults, a lauded feminist becomes entangled with her daughter’s best friend. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2023-12-22 10:00:21 UTC ]
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Novelists in Brooklyn draw inspiration from the New York borough’s cast of thousands, and particularly from its idiosyncratic neighborhoods. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2023-12-21 19:46:00 UTC ]
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Not many, according to a new collection of correspondence from a science fiction master. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2023-12-18 10:00:54 UTC ]
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A new volume of the Black feminist’s previously unpublished writing is read in audiobook form by a full cast of Black women. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2023-12-15 10:00:20 UTC ]
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In 2023, as we do each year, we published thousands of reviews of thousands of new books. But of all the reviews we published, these are the 10 you read the most. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-12-14 05:00:00 UTC ]
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First-time author Cait Corrain has apologized on X and announced she is going to rehab after losing her book deal and agent for 'review bombing' on Goodreads. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2023-12-12 22:43:34 UTC ]
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Good book criticism is booming right now. I have at least some degree of confidence in saying this because for the past six years, I’ve been keeping track of my favorite reviews to prepare for these annual roundups, and my 2023 longlist was by far the biggest and most difficult to narrow down.... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-12-11 12:47:20 UTC ]
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Keong Sim reads the audiobook version of the author’s second posthumous collection, “Songs on Endless Repeat.” Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2023-12-08 13:52:17 UTC ]
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Perdita Weeks reads the audiobook version of Megan Barnard’s debut novel, reimagining the Israeli queen as a source of mythic, feminist anger. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2023-12-01 10:00:14 UTC ]
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A new feature on Apple Books gives users Spotify Wrapped–style insights into their reading habits in 2023—a year in which Jack Carr, Prince Harry, Britney Spears, and Rebecca Yarros topped the Apple Books charts. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-11-28 05:00:00 UTC ]
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If you use Goodreads at all, you’ve likely noticed that the platform allows you to “rate” your “reads” using “stars” (those are scare quotes). If you use Goodreads regularly, you probably know that the ratings system is, in a word, fucked. Why does literally every Colleen Hoover book have over... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-11-21 17:28:32 UTC ]
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In the anthology “Critical Hits,” gamers like Hanif Abdurraqib, Alexander Chee and Larissa Pham explain what the medium means to them. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2023-11-20 10:00:28 UTC ]
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British author A.S. Byatt, who was known for award-winning works including 'Possession' and 'The Children's Book,' has died. She was 87. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2023-11-17 17:18:21 UTC ]
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“Going Infinite” may have missed the big takeaway, but it offers at least one undeniable pleasure: deep access. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2023-11-17 14:25:02 UTC ]
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Writer and editor Zeke Caligiuri joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to discuss American Precariat: Parables of Exclusion, a new collection of essays on class he co-edited along with eleven other incarcerated writers. The volume’s contributors include Eula Biss, Kao Kalia... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-11-16 09:08:02 UTC ]
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Libraries are sacred space within the unending, unrelenting madness, the profane that is Society, places where the predominant ideology is to inform. The Library of Alexandria was considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World; the Library of Congress is a wonderfully ( dis )organized... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-11-14 09:35:32 UTC ]
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