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☆ How Merve Emre became the hottest — and most reviled — name in literary criticism
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-24 | by ( Anna Silman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +40 min

Last winter, the 37-year-old literary critic and Wesleyan professor Merve Emre stood in front of a microphone in Rachel Comey's Soho boutique. While the others had largely opted to pull boldfaced names from the Review's archives — like a 1985 Gore Vidal piece about Tennessee Williams — Merve Emre would be reading Merve Emre. Emre has penned so many introductions for new anthologies and reissues that one fan joked on Twitter: "every new baby in 2024 comes with an introduction by merve emre." Courtesy of Merve Emre. Over her cocktail, Merve Emre told me what my profile on Merve Emre should be about.

Persons: Merve Emre, Rachel Comey's, Emily Greenhouse, Gore Vidal, Tennessee Williams — Merve Emre, Emre, Diane Williams, who's, Everyone's, Elena Ferrante, Jonathan Franzen, Rachel Cusk, Susan Sontag, Michael Roth, Reading Emre, merve emre, John Guillory, Dorothy Parker, Christopher Hitchens, Jon Fosse, Stephanie LaCava, Batuman, Lawrence, Alison Roman, Frank Gehry, Jason Stanley, someone's, they're, Anna Shechtman, Anne, Maggie Doherty, doesn't, Emre Emre, Roald Dahl's, Matilda, Myers, Briggs, you've, I've, Bain, Chris Bierly, I'd, Amy Lombard, Ferrante, She's, Christian Nakarado, Leo Carey, Jason, Nakarado, hasn't, Emre's, Altan, Emre lasered, Ara Osterweil, McGill, Beyoncé, Osterweil, Al Jazeera, sensitively, Ivy pricks, she's, Michael Berube, He'd, he'd, James Joyce, Simone de Beauvoir, Merve, Sarah Chihaya, —, Mary Butts, Leonora Carrington, Susan Taubes, Taubes, Durga Chew, Christian Lorentzen, Orhan Pamuk, Lena Dunham, Chew, Bose, Yale's, it's, she'd, Taylor Swift, Elif Batuman, Swift, Janet Malcolm, Charlie Kaufman, Roth, we're, What's, Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, It's, Elizabeth Morache, Rebecca Zisser, David Bergman Organizations: The New York, McGill, Times, New York Magazine, The, Yorker, Wesleyan University, Reading, Twitter, McGill ,, Wesleyan, Ivy League, Yale, Shapiro Center, Creative, NBA, Harvard, Bain & Company, Insider Yale, HBO, Congress, NPR, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, New York, Yahoo, Oxford, Oxford . McGill, University of Oxford, Penn State, Fordham University, Boston, Intelligence Squared, Yale Science, University, Whitney Museum, Netflix Locations: Rachel Comey's Soho, McGill , Oxford, Columbia, Norwegian, New Haven , Connecticut, New Haven, Adana, Turkey, New York, Cambridge, Montreal, United States, chiseling, Turkish

☆ Writers strike: AMPTP publicly shares latest package proposed to WGA
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-23 | by ( Taylor Romine | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +1 min

CNN —The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) shared in a news release their latest package of terms proposed to the Writers Guild of America (WGA) as part of strike negotiations. The proposed package from AMPTP includes an increase in wages, which the studios say is the highest wage increase for WGA in 35 years. AMPTP included a four-page document that the organization says was given to the WGA as part of negotiations. We are deeply committed to ending the strike and are hopeful that the WGA will work toward the same resolution.”Earlier this month, the WGA and AMPTP agreed to resume negotiations for the first time since the writers went on strike. The longest writers’ strike on record stretched for 154 days in 1988.

Persons: AMPTP, ”, Carol Lombardini, ’, Jon Passantino, Ramishah Maruf Organizations: CNN, Alliance, Television Producers, Writers Guild of America, WGA Locations: Hollywood

☆ Hollywood studios release details of new proposal to striking writers
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-23 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

SAG-AFTRA actors and Writers Guild of America (WGA) writers walk the picket line during their ongoing strike outside Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California, U.S., August 22, 2023. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni/File Photo Acquire Licensing RightsAug 23 (Reuters) - Hollywood studios and streaming services on Tuesday released the terms of a revised proposal to writers in a bid to end one of two strikes that have halted production and cost the California economy billions of dollars. According to the latest proposal, the Writers' Guild of America (WGA) will get a compounded 13% pay increase over the three-year contract, and AI-generated written content will not be considered "literary material". "We have come to the table with an offer that meets the priority concerns the writers have expressed. The WGA, which represents around 11,500 film and television writers, walked off the job on May 2 after negotiations reached an impasse over compensation, minimum staffing of writers' rooms and residual payments in the streaming era, among other issues.

Persons: Mario Anzuoni, Walt Disney, Carol Lombardini, Nilutpal, Stephen Coates Organizations: Writers Guild of America, Walt Disney Studios, REUTERS, Alliance, Television Producers, Walt, Netflix, Writers ' Guild of America, WGA, Screen Actors Guild, Thomson Locations: Burbank , California, U.S, California, Bengaluru

☆ After 122 Years, a Lost Edith Wharton Play Gets Its Debut
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-23 | by ( Eric Grode | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Edith Wharton’s 1934 autobiography, “A Backward Glance,” glances a bit more carefully at some things than others. She gives her close friend and fellow literary lion Henry James a chapter, but names her husband of 28 years exactly once. “The Shadow of a Doubt,” a full-length 1901 play that got close to a Broadway opening before foundering under murky circumstances. It was all but forgotten — which is perhaps what Wharton had intended — until two scholars unearthed a script in 2016. “Their work is so spread out that there’s a lot we still don’t know about.”

Persons: Edith Wharton’s, Henry James a, James, Wharton, Mary Chinery, Laura Rattray, Harry Ransom, ” Chinery, “, ” Organizations: Georgian Court University, University of Glasgow, Harry, University of Texas, Austin Locations: New Jersey

☆ These 3 science fiction stories inspired Elon Musk and explain his business choices — but critics say he's missing the point
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-22 | by ( Kai Xiang Teo | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

These stories' focus on great men and amazing technology defying the rules could explain his business choices. Elon Musk is one of the most divisive tech and business personas of our time, and there is much chatter about what shapes his beliefs and business choices. Beyond these, however, a consistent source of influence from his childhood to today is his self-professed love of science fiction. "That is Musk's guide for living, yet he is using that guide to justify doing the very thing that the story is opposed to," she added. Elon Musk loves "Deus Ex" and its cyberpunk styleElon Musk appears to be a huge fan of the 2000 science fiction video game, "Deus Ex."

Persons: Elon Musk, Isaac Asimov's, Douglas Adams, he's, dystopias, Napoleon, William MacAskill, Walter Isaacson, Musk, xAI Douglas Adams, —, Adams, Jill Lepore, it's, Hari Seldon, Jonny Diamond, takeaways, JC Denton Organizations: SpaceX, Guardian Locations: South Africa

☆ Opinion | How Hip-Hop Became America’s Poetry
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-22 | by ( John Mcwhorter | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

As a kid in the 1970s, even one attending private schools, I was directed to drive by poetry slowly now and then, but rarely to actually stop and take it in deeply. Today, while vanishingly few people are up for reciting poems such as Joyce Kilmer’s “Trees” or Tennyson’s “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” vast numbers can eagerly and effortlessly recite hip-hop lyrics. But true verse of the kind featured in hip-hop — poetry that does not rely on melody or harmony — centers the word alone. In contrast to the synergy of song and word, verse is an especially heightened form of language alone. Rap is verse poetry, in all of its verbal richness and rhythmic variety, a deft stylization of speech into art.

Persons: ’, doughty, W.E.B, Du Bois, Louis Untermeyer’s, Gioia, Pushkin, “ Oppenheimer, Barbie, Joyce Kilmer’s Organizations: ., America, Light Brigade

☆ Meet Khan Academy's AI tutor
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-21 | by ( Nadia Bidarian | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +10 min

More than 8,000 teachers and students will test education nonprofit Khan Academy’s artificial intelligence tutor in the classroom this upcoming school year, toying with its interactive features and funneling feedback to Khan Academy if the AI botches an answer. A conversation between CNN's Nadia Bidarian and Khanmigo, Khan Academy's AI chatbot tutor. Khan Lab School is a separate nonprofit founded by Khan Academy CEO Sal Khan. Khan Academy’s in-the-works AI learning course “AI 101 for Teachers,” created in partnership with Code.org, ETS and the International Society for Technology in Education, offers a path toward AI literacy among teachers. Imperfect, but improvingAn AI “tutor” like Khanmigo is not immune to the flubs all large language models face: so-called hallucinations.

Persons: —, Khanmigo, George Washington, Cleopatra, Martin Luther King Jr, CNN's Nadia Bidarian, Khan, Kristen DiCerbo, she’s, DiCerbo, “, Oz, ” DiCerbo, “ We’re, Albert Einstein, Einstein, Socrates, Christopher Nolan’s “ Oppenheimer, ”, Thomas Jefferson, Khanmigo’s Thomas Jefferson, GPT, Leo Lin, Sal Khan, they’ve, Khan Academy’s, ” Ernest Davis, Davis, it’s, ” Davis, Rama Ramakrishnan, ChatGPT, ” Ramakrishnan, “ It’s Organizations: CNN, Khan Academy, Khan, American, Khan Lab, . New York City Public Schools, Seattle Public Schools, Los Angeles Unified School District, EdWeek Research, Code.org, ETS, International Society for Technology, NYU, MIT Locations: Arizona, Independence, California, . New York, Education, United States

☆ A former lawyer has paid down $190,000 in student loans and can afford to cancel the remaining $20,000 balance now. He explains why it's smarter to not pay the lump sum, and how he's investing it inst
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-16 | by ( Kathleen Elkins | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Since the interest rate on his student debt is so low, he's better off investing the money he'd use to make a lump-sum payment. If that's the case, you might want to prioritize your debt, even if you have a low interest rate locked in. Refinancing your loans at a lower interest rateGroup didn't always have such a low interest rate on his student loans. It was important to him to consolidate everything, he said: "I needed one monthly payment and one interest rate. He ended up refinancing three more times to get to his current interest rate of 2.35%.

Persons: Ian, He's, I'm, Roth, he's, they've Organizations: Ian Group, Apple

☆ ‘Swifterature:’ Belgian university launches course to analyze Taylor Swift lyrics
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-15 | by ( Leah Dolan | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

CNN —Poetry, prose and now songwriting: Ghent University in Belgium is launching a new literature course dedicated to the literary merit of Taylor Swift’s discography. “Highly prolific and autobiographical in her songwriting, Swift makes frequent allusions to canonical literary texts in her music,” the class syllabus explains. “Using Swift’s work as a springboard, we will explore, among other topics, literary feminism, ecocriticism, fan studies, and tropes such as the anti-hero. In 2016, the University of Texas launched an English Literature course unpacking Beyoncé’s visual album “Lemonade” and its relationship to Black feminism. “But if anyone can teach you a lesson in how to respond to trolls, it’s Taylor Swift,” she concluded.

Persons: Taylor, Elly McCausland, McCausland, Sylvia Plath, Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare —, Geoffrey Chaucer’s “, Criseyde, Charlotte Brontë’s “, Margaret Atwood, Simon Armitage, “, Swift, Taylor Swift, ” McCausland, ”, Sylvia Plath’s, —, I’ll, “ I’m, There’s, it’s Taylor Swift Organizations: CNN, Ghent University, Oxford University, University of York, University of Oslo, New York University, Arizona State University, Berklee College of Music, Rice University, University of Texas, University of Copenhagen Locations: Belgium, Charlotte Brontë’s “ Villette, ”, ’, United Kingdom, Norway, Europe, United States, Houston

☆ ‘Lunar Codex’ aims to bring human art to the moon
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-15 | by ( Jacopo Prisco | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +11 min

Nicknamed “Moon Museum,” it was attached to a leg of the spacecraft and then left on the moon with it. Called the Lunar Codex, it will be split across three launches planned over the next 18 months. The artworks that make up the Lunar Codex will be miniaturized in nickel NanoFiche. Peralta originally intended the Lunar Codex to include only his own works, such as "Sonnets from the Labrador," but reconceived the project as a global endeavor during the pandemic. Jack Burns, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Colorado Boulder, thinks the Lunar Codex is a cool concept.

Persons: —, Andy Warhol, Samuel Peralta —, ” Peralta, Peralta, I’ve, ”, “, Isaac Asimov's, Samuel Peralta, Mazzy, Olesya Dzhurayeva, Connie Karleta, Samuel Peralta “, Daniela De Paulis, ” Paulis, Jack Burns, “ I’m, Carl Sagan, Timothy Ferris, Bach, Beethoven …, Chuck Berry, Ferris, ” Ferris, ‘ Kilroy Organizations: CNN, NASA, “, SpaceX, United Launch Alliance, Virgin, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Colorado Locations: Canadian, North America, Ukrainian, Kyiv, Russia, American, Netherlands, Labrador, University of Colorado Boulder

☆ A New Role for Werner Herzog: the Voice of A.I. Poetry
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-14 | by ( Joseph Bernstein | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

If artificial intelligence had a voice, what would it sound like? Calm, like HAL 9000? For the editors of “I Am Code: An Artificial Intelligence Speaks,” a collection of poems generated by A.I., the answer was obvious: Werner Herzog. The 80-year-old German director, actor and author is a titan of independent cinema whose films often concern the hubris and folly of humankind. His speaking voice, known to audiences mostly through the stark, literary voice-over narration that accompanies many of his documentaries, carries an existential pathos and Teutonic gravitas that have made it a pop culture trademark.

Persons: Werner Herzog, Brent Katz, Josh Morgenthau, Simon Rich, Herzog Organizations: HAL, Artificial Intelligence

☆ I'm an AI prompt engineer. Here are 3 ways I use ChatGPT to get the best results.
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-12 | by ( Aaron Mok | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Anna Bernstein is a prompt engineer at Copy.ai, which makes AI tools to generate written content. Her job is to write prompts to train the bot to generate high-quality, accurate writing. Here are her tips on how to write prompts to get the best outcomes from AI chatbots. Now, I'm a prompt engineer helping to optimize the most cutting-edge technology in the world. It's my job, then, to write prompts that can get that query to generate the best output through:Instruction, or "write a product description about this."

Persons: Anna Bernstein, —, I'm, it's, I've, didn't, ChatGPT Organizations: Morning, Copy.ai Locations: New York, English

☆ Edith Wharton Goes to War
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-11 | by ( Anne Nelson | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

On July 1, Victoria Amelina, a Ukrainian novelist and war correspondent, died of injuries sustained when a Russian missile struck a crowded pizza restaurant in the city of Kramatorsk. That senseless attack not only removed a bright literary light; it also called attention to the prominent role women have played in reporting on the war’s atrocities. From high-profile reporters like the BBC’s Lyse Doucet and CNN’s Clarissa Ward to ordinary Ukrainians writing on social media, women have been courageously covering the conflict since it began in February 2022.

Persons: Victoria Amelina, Lyse Doucet, CNN’s Clarissa Ward Locations: Ukrainian, Russian, Kramatorsk

☆ What Do ‘Breakfast of Champions’ and ‘The Joy of Sex’ Have in Common?
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-10 | by ( Tina Jordan | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Coincidentally, Sayre also wrote about “The Joy of Sex” for The Times, including it in a round-up of sex manuals (which was headlined “Ahh!”). Here, though, she was most definitely interested in the graphics. ‘I understand,’ she said, ‘that you have “The Joy of Sex” — unillustrated.’” There was no such thing, of course; the art in “The Joy of Sex,” as the Book Review noted, “may have had just a little to do with its phenomenal sales.”That wasn’t true of “Breakfast of Champions,” which soared onto the best-seller lists on its literary merits alone. It’s just an agreeable thing to do, and I recommend it to everybody. I always say to people, practice an art, no matter how well or badly, because then you have the experience of becoming, and it makes your soul grow.”

Persons: Sayre, ”, mien, ’, “, Vonnegut, “ I’ve Organizations: The Times, U.S . Airways Locations: ”, Manhattan, U.S

☆ An author says AI is ‘writing’ unauthorized books being sold under her name on Amazon
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-10 | by ( Clare Duffy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

Others have said they don’t want their work being used to train AI models, which could then be used to imitate them. Amazon removed the fake books being sold under Friedman’s name and said its policies prohibit such imitation. Author Jane Friedman found several books being sold under her name on Amazon, only she didn't write them — she suspects artificial intelligence did. The Authors Guild has been working with Amazon since this past winter to address the issue of books written by AI, Rasenberger said. And, she said, companies and publishers should continue investing in creative work made by humans, even if AI appears more convenient.

Persons: Jane Friedman, I’ve, ” Friedman, —, ” Mary Rasenberger, Rasenberger, James Patterson, Roxane Gay, Margaret Atwood —, OpenAI, Friedman, they’d, Ashley Vanicek, ”, Suzanne Skyvara Organizations: New, New York CNN, Amazon, CNN, Authors, Microsoft, Twitter Locations: New York

☆ Martin Walser, 92, Dies; Among the Last Postwar German Literary Titans
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-08 | by ( Clay Risen | More About Clay Risen | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Martin Walser, among the last of a generation of acerbic, socially engaged novelists who dominated the German literary scene after World War II, died on July 26 in Überlingen, Germany, a city on Lake Constance, along the Swiss border. His publisher, Rowohlt, announced his death in a statement but did not provide a cause. Alongside writers like Henrich Böll, Günter Grass and Siegfried Lenz, Mr. Walser wrote essays, plays and novels that skewered what they saw as the complacent conservatism of Germany as it rebuilt itself into an economic powerhouse during the 1950s and ’60s. “If one were to cite an example of historically conscious, committed writing in postwar German literature, who else would spring to mind than Martin Walser?” President Frank-Walter Steinmeier of Germany wrote after Mr. Walser’s death. In 1981, he received the Georg Büchner Prize, the highest literary honor in Germany.

Persons: Martin Walser, Rowohlt, Henrich Böll, Siegfried Lenz, Walser, Frank, Walter Steinmeier, “ Ein, Georg Büchner Locations: Überlingen, Germany, Lake Constance, Swiss

☆ Paramount to sell Simon & Schuster to KKR for $1.6 billion in cash
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-07 | by ( Ramishah Maruf | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

New York CNN —Paramount has agreed to sell Simon & Schuster to private equity firm KKR for $1.6 billion in cash, after more than three years of trying to offload the book publishing powerhouse. Paramount posted Simon & Schuster for sale in 2020. In November 2022, Paramount ended its agreement to sell Simon & Schuster to Penguin Random House in what would have been a $2.2 billion deal. In October 2022, US District Court Judge Florence Pan ruled the combination of the book publishing giants would illegally reduce competition. The private equity firm also sold audiobook publisher RBMedia to H.I.G Capital this year after acquiring it in 2018.

Persons: Simon, Schuster, Bob Bakish, ” Bakish, Jonathan Karp, Dennis Eulau, Biden, Florence Pan, Penguin, RBMedia Organizations: New, New York CNN, Paramount, KKR, Paramount Global, Random, Justice, Elliott Management, Barnes & Nobles, Amazon, H.I.G, & $, & $ Locations: New York, Barnes

Paramount said on Monday it had reached a deal to sell Simon & Schuster, one of the biggest and most prestigious publishing houses in the United States, to the private-equity firm KKR, in a major changing of the guard in the books business. The deal, for $1.62 billion, will put control of the cultural touchstone behind authors like Stephen King and Bob Woodward in the hands of a financial buyer with an expanding presence in the publishing industry. While private equity investors have had a significant footprint in the book business — different firms have owned literary agencies, publishing houses and the retailer Barnes & Noble — the acquisition of one of the largest publishers in the country vastly increases the hold of financial interests in the business. Richard Sarnoff, who leads KKR’s media, entertainment and technology group, is a familiar name to many in the publishing industry and his involvement is encouraging, said several publishing executives on Monday. Mr. Sarnoff has held multiple positions at Bertelsmann, the company that owns Penguin Random House, and served as chairman of the Association of American Publishers, a trade group.

Persons: Simon, Schuster, Stephen King, Bob Woodward, Noble, Richard Sarnoff, Sarnoff Organizations: Paramount, KKR, Barnes, Bertelsmann, Random, Association of American Publishers Locations: United States

☆ Trump’s Jan. 6 Trial: We Owe It to History
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-04 | by ( Peggy Noonan | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

Peggy Noonan is an opinion columnist at the Wall Street Journal where her column, "Declarations," has run since 2000. She has been a fellow at Harvard University’s Institute of Politics, and has taught in the history department at Yale University. Before entering the Reagan White House, Noonan was a producer and writer at CBS News in New York, and an adjunct professor of Journalism at New York University. She was born in Brooklyn, New York and grew up there, in Massapequa Park, Long Island, and in Rutherford, New Jersey. In November, 2016 she was named one of the city's Literary Lions by the New York Public Library.

Persons: Peggy Noonan, ”, ” Noonan, Ronald Reagan, Noonan Organizations: Wall, Journal, NBC News, The, Harvard University’s Institute of Politics, Yale University, Reagan White House, CBS News, Journalism, New York University, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Lions, New York Public Library Locations: New York, Brooklyn , New York, Massapequa Park, Long, Rutherford , New Jersey, Rutherford, New York City

☆ Read Your Way Through Hanoi
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-02 | by ( Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Read Your Way Around the World is a series exploring the globe through books. Hanoi has always been a city of tales and legends. Cradled by the silky Red River, Hanoi is also a city of loss and survival: It was destroyed time and time again during the French Indochina War, then the Vietnam War, when thousands of tons of bombs were dropped onto the city. But once in Hanoi, you will feel the energy of a city that constantly renews itself. If you prefer to get to know Hanoi via fiction, “Dumb Luck,” by Vu Trong Phung — a sarcastic novel set in Hanoi during the colonial period — is considered a classic of Vietnamese literature.

Persons: ”, Emperor Ly Thai, Luke Nguyen, banh, Huong, Ho Xuan Huong, Nguyen Quang Thieu, Vu Trong Locations: Hanoi, Indochina, Vietnam

☆ Is There a Right Way to Talk About Black Culture?
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-01 | by ( Ismail Muhammad | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

At its best “Dark Days” is the record of an intellectual life sustained by the Black vernacular. In the essay “Reading Fire, Reading the Stars,” Reeves recounts learning how to be a critic in the Pentecostal church. “Profligacy” is the key word here: With a nod to Hartman’s explorations of “wayward” lives and the presumed promiscuity of Black urban culture, Reeves reframes promiscuity as an aesthetic and intellectual virtue. In Reeves’s hands profligacy becomes an ethical necessity: Everything must be thought of in relation to what it shares space with. Recounting a trip to speak with students at a Native school, he feels his status as a stranger among strangers.

Persons: ” Reeves, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr, Louis Till, Emmett Till’s, Ezra Pound, Mussolini, Hitler, Virgil, Dante, Reeves, Michael K, Williams, Solmaz, profligacy, ” Locations: ”

☆ In ‘My Name Is Iris,’ a Mother Learns the Limits of Protectiveness
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-01 | by ( Erika L. Sánchez | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Iris’s underlying anxiety is heightened by a horrific hate crime she narrowly escaped in her childhood. But as a mother, she turns out to be not that different from her own, raising her 9-year-old daughter, Mel, to value safety and conformity. When Iris moves into a predominantly white suburban housing development with Mel, she begins to see a mysterious wall in her front yard grow taller every night. The wall becomes a sort of societal gaslighting, a symbol of what we people of color know, but is not acknowledged. But only citizens can obtain these coveted bands, and even then, the children of immigrants, like Iris, are excluded.

Persons: Mel, ”, “, Iris, it’s Organizations: U.S . Locations: United States, Texas, U.S

☆ 3 Young Irish Writers and Their ‘Difficult Second Books’
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-01 | by ( Imogen West-Knights | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In recent years, Irish novelists, and particularly Irish women novelists, have published some of the most compelling English-language literary fiction. Not just Sally Rooney, whose three novels to date have sold millions of copies worldwide, but a whole host of women have written books which, taken together, suggest a new contemporary Irish literature that focuses on the precarity of modern working life, as well as intimacy and its failings. Naoise Dolan, 31, Megan Nolan, 33, and Nicole Flattery, 33, are three of the better-known members of this cohort. Dolan’s 2020 debut novel “Exciting Times” was the story of a love triangle set in Hong Kong; “Acts of Desperation,” from Nolan and published in 2021, charted the life of a young woman in an abject relationship; and Flattery also published her debut, “Show Them A Good Time,” a collection of deadpan and appealingly peculiar short stories, in 2020. All three have also released a second book this year: Dolan’s is an acerbic comedy of errors about an impending wedding called “The Happy Couple,” Nolan’s “Ordinary Human Failings” follows an Irish family after one of its members is accused of a terrible crime, and “Nothing Special” is Flattery’s tale of a young woman who gets a job as a typist at Andy Warhol’s Factory.

Persons: Sally Rooney, Naoise Dolan, Megan Nolan, Nicole, ”, Nolan, Andy Warhol’s Factory Locations: Hong Kong

The latest rival, Threads, was launched by Facebook-parent Meta and got a stunning start earlier this month. Facebook … when you’re looking for community (or used furniture)With more than 2 billion daily users around the world, it’s tricky to describe the stereotypical Facebook user. Pinterest … when you’re looking for inspirationPinterest lets users easily search for and organize visual-heavy inspiration on a wide range of creative topics. Twitter (aka X) … when you’re looking for what’s going on (for now)For years, Twitter was a central hub for real-time news. Threads … when you’re looking for musings from your favorite influencers, celebs and journalistsThe latest Twitter competitor, Threads, was launched by Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta.

Persons: Elon Musk, Instagram, it’s, Pinterest, “, Snapchat, Charlie, “ David, ”, Nextdoor, Twitch …, Long, Donald Trump, Reddit, Musk, influencers, Jack Dorsey, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Chrissy Teigen Organizations: CNN, Facebook, —, YouTube, LinkedIn, Capitol, Trump, Twitter, Meta, Democratic Rep Locations: Italy

☆ Nobody Ever Read American Literature Like This Guy Did
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-29 | by ( A.O. Scott | More About A.O. Scott | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

It has been a hundred years since D.H. Lawrence published “Studies in Classic American Literature,” and in the annals of literary criticism the book may still claim the widest discrepancy between title and content. Not with respect to subject matter: As advertised, this compact volume consists of essays on canonical American authors of the 18th and 19th centuries — a familiar gathering of dead white men. Some (Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman) are still household names more than a century later, while others (Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur, Richard Henry Dana Jr.) have faded into relative obscurity. My point is that nobody ever read them like Lawrence did — as madly, as wildly or as insightfully. “Studies in Classic American Literature” is as dull a phrase as any committee of professors could devise.

Persons: Lawrence, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, Hector St, John de Crèvecoeur, Richard Henry Dana Jr, Melville’s, Moby, Dick, ”, Farmer ”, — Organizations: “

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