How Much Does Our Language Shape Our Thinking? Language is perhaps the ultimate social construct. Manvir Singh, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of California, Davis, examines “unease about the erosion of various cultural identities” as English continues to spread around the globe. At issue is the question of whether languages “influence how […]
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BookLooks, RatedBooks, and Other Unprofessional Book “Review” Sites to Know: Book Censorship News, January 10, 2025 “One of the trends we’ll see in book censorship over 2025 is the increased use of unprofessional, politically-driven book review websites like BookLooks to make decisions in professional library and educational settings,” writes Kelly Jensen for Book Riot. I
How AI is unlocking ancient texts — and could rewrite history “From deciphering burnt Roman scrolls to reading crumbling cuneiform tablets, neural networks could give researchers more data than they’ve had in centuries.” As ominous as the threat of generative AI replacing writers is, there are some kinds of things that AI can be legitimately
Jimmy Carter: Poet, Novelist, Memoirist, Philosopher “He wasn’t just prolific, publishing 32 books. His output also showed an unusual range that included memoirs and forays into historical fiction and even poetry.” The New York Times eulogizes President Jimmy Carter with emphasis on his writing: “Publishing 32 books over the course of his life, he wasn’t
Texas county reverses classification of Indigenous history book as fiction This controversy over the classification of a children’s Native American history book in a Texas county north of Houston occurred in October 2024. A Texas county on Tuesday reversed a decision to reclassify a children’s book on Native American history as fiction after the move
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Update on Comments Glitch The cause of the problem has been traced to Jetpack. Jetpack support has informed me that “this is an issue that our development team is aware of and working to resolve. It will likely be fixed in the next version of Jetpack in early January.” So that’s where we are. In
Update on Comments Glitch The cause of the problem has been traced to Jetpack. Jetpack support has informed me that “this is an issue that our development team is aware of and working to resolve. It will likely be fixed in the next version of Jetpack in early January.” So that’s where we are. In
My Continued Apologies The comment glitch on this blog continues. My hosting provider has been helpful in trying to track down the cause. In the meantime, here’s a work-around that may may work: If you type a comment and hit the “post comment” button, you’ll get the message “submitting comment,” followed by nothing. But, if
My Apologies in Advance. After the migration to a new computer, I now find myself unable to reply to comments on my own blog. This pertains to all posts over the last couple of weeks. Please know that I do appreciate your comments and read every one of them. I won’t be able to start
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Who’s Really Writing Celebrity Novels? “The writers and agents working behind the scenes tell us how it actually works.” “. . . what does it mean when a celebrity decides to write fiction?” Sophie Vershbow interviewed some “ writers and agents working behind the scenes on similar books [to] tell us how it actually works.”
