Analysis finds proportion of female authors and characters fell after 19th century, with male authors remaining ‘remarkably resistant’ to writing women Women in novels have tended to “feel”, while men “get”; women smile or laugh, while men grin or chuckle. An analysis of more than 100,000 novels spanning more than 200 years shows how gendered even seemingly innocuous words can be – as well as revealing an unexpected decline in the proportion of female novelists from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century.Academics from the universities of Illinois and California at Berkeley used an algorithm to examine 104,000 works of fiction dating from 1780 to 2007, drawn mostly from HathiTrust Digital Library. The algorithm identified both author and character genders. The academics expected to see an increase in the prominence of female characters in literature across the two centuries. Instead, “from the 19th century through the early 1960s we see a story of steady decline,” write Ted Underwood, David Bamman and Sabrina Lee in their paper The Transformation of Gender in English-Language Fiction, which has just been published in the Journal of Cultural Analytics.No one has been willing to advance the dismal suggestion that the whole story from 1800 to 1960 was a story of declineOn average, men remain remarkably resistant to giving women more than a third of the character-space in their stories Related: Pushing back: why it's time for women to rewrite the story Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2018-02-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
Among the most-read news stories on our website were our coverage of the increase in bookstore sales in the first six months of 2016 and stories related to book discoverability. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-12-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) is pushing back against Hachette CEO Arnaud Nourry's suggestion that proposed "vast exceptions to copyright law for libraries," would devastate European publishers. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-04-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The pioneering romance ebook publisher Samhain Publishing will begin shutting down publishing operations due to a steady decline in ebook sales. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-02-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Time Out will no longer produce any Time Out Guide Books in 2016, the company has confirmed. After the story was first reported by The Telegraph, spokesperson for the company said the decision had been taken “as part of the continued evolution of the business”. The guides' sales have been in... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2016-01-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Online retailers and publishers are pushing back against Facebook Inc. FB -0.20% 's efforts to track users across the Internet, fearing that the data it vacuums up to target ads will give the social network too much of an edge. Web traffic exp ... Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2014-09-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Facing industry pressure from mobile ride-booking applications Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc., American United Taxi Services is pushing back with an app of its own. "TAXIMKE" is designed with its competitors' concept in mind: order, book and track a taxi through your smartphone. Unlike... Continue reading at Silicon Valley Business Journal
[ Silicon Valley Business Journal | 2014-06-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Mike Luckwell buys struggling title from Jon Moulton's private equity company, Better Capital, with plan to target over-50sReader's Digest has been sold for just £1 to Mike Luckwell, whose previous major investments have included Bob the Builder creator HIT Entertainment and WPP.Jon Moulton's... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-02-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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One of the first women to write about wine, she was known for her prickly putdowns and forthright views about food and drinkPamela Vandyke Price, who has died aged 90, was the first woman in Britain to write seriously about wine and spirits. Writing about drinking – its tastes, smells,... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-02-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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