Federal judge overturns part of Florida’s book ban law, drawing on nearly 100 years of precedent protecting First Amendment access to ideas James B. Blasingame is a professor of English at Arizona State University and a former high school English teacher who has “tried to learn as much as I can about the history of […]
Thanks to book blogger Kate for once again sponsoring 6 Degrees of Separation. This month we begin with the winner of the 2025 Miles Franklin Literary Award, Ghost Cities by Siang Lu. Description from Goodreads: Ghost Cities – inspired by the vacant, uninhabited megacities of China – follows multiple narratives, including one in which a
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What’s Happening to Reading? “For many people, A.I. may be bringing the age of traditional text to an end.” “What will happen to reading culture as reading becomes automated?” asks Joshua Rothman in this article in The New Yorker. He examines how new technology such as ereaders and artificial intelligence have changed and will continue
August 21 has been celebrated as National Senior Citizens Day in the United States since President Ronald Reagan so proclaimed in 1988: For all they have achieved throughout life and for all they continue to accomplish, we owe older citizens our thanks and a heartfelt salute. We can best demonstrate our gratitude and esteem by
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A Harvard Professor Breaks Down the Real Rules of Writing Jason Hellerman summarizes an interview with Harvard linguist and cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker about “what makes great writing and how you can command attention in the modern era.” The target audience for this piece is writers interested in producing fiction and screenwriting for the general
After the Deluge: What Future for Climate Fiction? Keith Woodhouse discusses “an emerging subgenre that we might call the ‘climate assessment drama.’ These books are vast in size and scope and, at the same time, narrowly concerned with the particular political, ethical, and technical conundrums of the world climate change has wrought.” Why Do Doctors
This month we start with the 2025 Women’s Prize winner, The Safekeep by Yael Van Der Wouden. I haven’t read this book. first degree The most recent 6 Degrees of Separation starter book that I hadn’t read is last month’s, Theory & Practice by Michelle de Kretser. But I have read it since writing last
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Refugee Lit Stakes Its Worthy Claim “In a refugee camp,” Iranian American author Dina Nayeri writes in her 2019 novelistic memoir, The Ungrateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You, “stories are everything. Everyone has one, having just slipped out from the grip of a nightmare, [they] transported us out of our places of exile, to
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This time around, we start with the 2025 Stella Prize winner, Michelle de Kretser’s work of autofiction, Theory & Practice. Here’s part of the description of the novel from Goodreads: What happens when our desires run contrary to our beliefs? What should we do when the failings of revered figures come to light? Who is
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