- Would you like to have Christopher Lee read Edgar Allan Poe to you this Halloween? Open Culture provides.
- Also, for Halloween, Maria Papadouris recounts the literary competition that brought us Frankenstein. (Daily JSTOR)
- Rob Beschizza reminds us about the Uncensored Library and why it matters to save and share information and stories others don’t want us to know. (boing boing)
- Lisa Butts uses Emily St. John Mandel’s Exit Party to think about whiteness in the speculative fiction genre. (Who Even Reads)
- Marissa Levien uses playlists when she writes. I once bought a copy of a John Connolly novel that came with a CD of what he was listening to when he wrote one of his Charlie Parker novels. It introduced me to Neko Case, who is now one of my favorite artists. (LitHub)
- Annalee Newitz wants science fiction writers to be bolder with characters’ pronouns. I agree, and think that writers in other genres should too. (Reactor)
- Matt Enis sees “AI defiance” and resistance among librarians. (Library Journal)
- Medievalists.net takes a look at a new paper on Beowulf, by Jun Terasawa, what makes us question the identity of the real villain. I love this stuff!
- Brittany Allan brings us up to date on the nonsense that is blocking the sale of Sally Rooney’s work in the UK. (LitHub)
- Rooney is not the only author being penalized by publishers for supporting Palestinians. Sam Levin has another case for us to look at. (The Guardian)
- Anatoly Liberman talks about futile efforts to “reform” the spelling of English. I use danger quotes because I dispute that English orthography needs to be fixed. (OUP Blog)
- Claire Masquida shows us how book bans affect women and girls. (Ms.)
- James Folta rounds up stories of authors being accused of using plagiarism. (LitHub)
- James Davis Nicoll wonders about the difference—if there is one—between our best and our favorite books. (Reactor)
- Gayoung Lee reports on an actually interesting discovery about the Voynich manuscript. (Gizmodo)
- Ilana Bean meditates on nameless narrators. (LitHub)
- Snigdha Poonam turns the spotlight on literary scams. (The Dial)
- Terrina Jairaj reports on a story that utterly delighted my corner of Bluesky last week: a bear wandered into a California public library. (The Mary Sue)
- Véronique Hyland argues that everyone (English language speakers) is reading the same books. (ELLE)
- Kelsey Williams investigates how rare books from European monastic libraries ended up in the hands of British collectors. (The Conversation)
- Kelly Jensen explains how to vote for libraries this November (in the US). (Book Riot)
