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ACLU of Iowa, Lambda Legal sue to block Iowa law that bans LGBTQ teaching, explicit books
The American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa and Lambda Legal are suing to block portions of a sweeping Iowa law that restricts schools from teaching about LGBTQ topics and requires them to ban books depicting sex acts. The groups are representing eight Iowa students and their families, along with Iowa Safe Schools, a nonprofit that…
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Ford Evening Book Talk: The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley
Admired by George Washington, ridiculed by Thomas Jefferson, published in London, and read far and wide, Phillis Wheatley led one of the most extraordinary American lives. Seized in West Africa and forced into slavery as a child, she was sold to a merchant family in Boston, where she became a noted poet at a young…
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Michael Bishop obituary
Michael Bishop, who has died aged 78, wrote many stories that inhabit the borderlands between science fiction and mainstream, drawing on influences as diverse as Ray Bradbury and Jorge Luis Borges, Thomas M Disch and Philip K Dick, Dylan Thomas and Tolstoy, but also reaching back as far as the Greek historian Herodotus for inspiration.…
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Almost a million children in the UK do not own a book
Almost a million children in the UK do not have a single book of their own at home, according to new research conducted by the National Literacy Trust. Some 91.4% of children aged five to 18 who were surveyed said that they had a book of their own, meaning that 8.6% (one in 12) did…
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Read Palestine Week begins tomorrow, and you can read these titles for free.
November 28, 2023, 11:13am Spurred on by a cancel culture within the Western cultural industry and horrified by “Israel’s incessant bombardment of Gaza as a form of collective punishment,” a collective of more than 350 global publishers and people working in the industry issued a public statement in early November expressing solidarity with the Palestinian…
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On Not Asking “Should I Insert Myself in the Text?”
Public Books and the Sydney Review of Books have partnered to exchange a series of articles with international concerns. Today’s article, “On Not Asking ‘Should I Insert Myself in the Text?’” by Kate Rossmanith, was originally published by the SRB on September 11, 2023. There is a passage in Ruth Behar’s book, The Vulnerable Observer: Anthropology That Breaks Your Heart,…
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Booker judge admits it’s nearly impossible to read ALL the books.
November 28, 2023, 10:48am In a refreshing “quiet part loud” moment earlier this fall, this year’s celebrity Booker judge, Peep Show’s Robert Webb, admitted publicly that it’s basically impossible to read the entire pre-longlist pool of 163 books in seven months. While that’s not exactly a novel-a-day, as Webb suggests, it’s pretty damn hard, particularly…
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Literary review website taken down after three weeks
A book review blog that caused waves in the literary scene over the weekend has been pulled down mere weeks after its launch. When the Malta Literary Review came to the scene, people were taken aback by its no-holds-barred approach to its literary criticism. Its first article was a critique on Praspar Press, a micro-publisher that promotes…
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Five Excellent Norse Fiction Books From Indie Publishers
There’s been a notable upsurge in Viking-related releases across all forms of media in recent years, as I’ve previously discussed, specifically regarding retellings of the myths and novels inspired by the sagas. The broader world of original fiction is no exception to that. But even with the significant increase of interest in the subject matter,…
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In the battle over books, who gets to decide what’s age-appropriate at libraries?
Parents Against Bad Books co-founder Carolyn Harrison (center) talks with people last month outside the public library in Idaho Falls, Idaho, about what she considers obscene books on the shelves. Kim Raff for NPR For months, Carolyn Harrison and a small band of activists have been setting up folding tables with an array of what…