US bookish folk, please consider contacting your congressional representatives and ask them to vote NO on a disturbing bill that proposes to eliminate any books with transgender and “sexually oriented” content from school libraries. H.R. 7661 is a catastrophic attempt to take away children’s right to read.
- For fun: Amy Greenlee looks for red flag behavior in Wuthering Heights. (McSweeney’s)
- Ada Palmer argues that some science fiction/fantasy writers are also historians. (Strange Horizons)
- Julia Scheeres wrote what she wrote and has been banned in 11 states. She has no regrets. (LitHub)
- Madeleine Schwartz dives deeply into the question of whether or not Kamel Daoud “stole” a woman’s life story for his award-winning book, Houris. (The Guardian)
- Meanwhile, Shannon Hale discusses the necessity of books for kids and teens about sexual assault: books teach us to recognize abuse. (Salt Lake Tribune)
- Sayantani DasGupta meditates on the importance of telling stories when *gestures* all of this is going on. (LitHub)
- Carlo Iacono challenges the prevailing belief that screens are eroding our ability to concentrate and causing a decline in reading. I have thoughts about this, obviously, but Iacono raises a lot of important questions about reducing what is probably a complex change in attention and the ability to process information to “the youths!” (Aeon)
- Relatedly, Emma Loffhagen wonders about the usefulness of yearly book reading targets. (The Guarian)
- Grace Lapointe reflects on disability in romance. (Book Riot)
- OpenCulture introduces the absolutely bizarre Codex Seraphinianus.
- Francis Spufford writes in praise of fantasy. I concur; I’ve been taking a lot of comfort in reading fantasy novels lately.(The Guardian)
- Mother Jones suggests that we read solarpunk as an antidote to the very depressing state of everything.
- Anastasia Tsiolcas takes a look at a case of censorship disguised as protecting young readers’ mental health. (NPR)
- Jessica Bowman reports on a wild attempt by a Colorado detective to obtain book purchase records at a book store in Durango. (Durango Herald)
- …and a double-shot of censorship news from Book Riot’s Kelly Jensen: February 20 and February 27
