Apologies, fellow readers, for the delay in posting this round-up. The semester started last week and then I had family visiting and…well, it’s been busy. Anyway, on with the links!
- Ella Creamer presents more evidence that you should never trust book blurbs. (The Guardian)
- Jamie Canaves reflects on being an early reader. Being a fellow galley reader, I share some of these feelings. (Book Riot)
- Randee Dawn rounds up a series of books that are unreadable for a variety of reasons (not unreadably bad but literally unreadable, leaving me to wonder if “books” have to be readable in order to be considered books. (Tor)
- Daniel Herman greets the growing consternation about ChatGPT and AI-text generation with a call to change the focus of English classes from writing to reading. (The Atlantic)
- Maria Bustillos talks about the right of first sale, the Internet Archive, ebooks, and other legal issues that make digital content such a pain in the ass. (The Nation)
- James Sherman profiles Tessa Keslo, a badass nineteenth-century librarian in Los Angeles. (Los Angeles Public Library)
- Thomas Harding answers the question of how on earth Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov’s notorious novel, was published—with bonus extracts of the wide variety of reactions people had to the book. (LitHub)
- …and a double shot of censorship news, via Book Riot: August 25 and September 1
