ChatGPT-4o and the films ‘Her’ and ‘Blade Runner 2049’ all pull from one another as they develop the concept of a virtual assistant.
Warner Bros.
Science fiction and technological innovation feed off each other in an ongoing back-and-forth that can play out over decades.
No one is safe from Lady Whistledown’s pen, not even Penelope Featherington.
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Penelope Featherington uses Lady Whistledown to comment on a society she feels restricted by as a woman.
Allen Ginsberg dancing (1969).
Columbus Metropolitan Library, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Poets take us outside ourselves. In their transmission of atypical experiences, they teach us empathy and compassion.
At its peak in the mid-2010s, the Romance Writers of America had around 10,000 members.
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In its bankruptcy filing, the Romance Writers of America blamed ‘disputes concerning diversity, equity and inclusion’ for its membership declining by an astounding 80%.
Photograph of Stefan Zweig and Joseph Roth in Ostend, summer 1936, likely taken by Zweig’s secretary, Lotte Altmann.
Wikimedia Commons
Zweig’s optimistic vision of a Europe without borders has stood the test of time, and still has much to teach us today.
The shortlisted books for 2024’s Women’s Prize for Fiction.
Women's Prize for Fiction
From stories of Irish mothers to Shakespearean actors in the West Bank, this year’s shortlist is as varied as ever.
Franz Kafka/ Max Brod Archive
His characters struggle to find adequate nourishment.
An illustration from one of Kafka’s notebooks of a weary person at a desk.
Max Brod Archive
The author’s work and life were punctuated by illness and disability.
Emilio Garcia/Unsplash
Anne Carson’s playful new book, Wrong Norma, meaningfully makes apparently random connections – and the result is compelling.
Nobel prizewinner Alice Munro has died at the age of 92.
TT News / Almay
Munro’s stories often illuminate the inherent drama of the domestic and seemingly mundane.
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This fever-dream Swedish novella demonstrates an incomparable ability to give name to the things we feel but have been unable to find the right words for.
Shardlake, Bridgerton season 3 and the new Raymond Briggs exhibition should all be on your radar this week.
Disney/Liam Daniel/Neftlix/ Andrew Hasson /Alamy
Much to enjoy as Bridgerton returns, a Tudor murder mystery intrigues, the International Booker prize is imminent, the National Gallery is 200 and the genius of Raymond Briggs is on display.
International Booker Prize shortlisted books.
International Booker Prize
Six brilliant novels from around the world but only one can win.
A Palestinian boy from Gaza at a temporary housing compound in Doha, Qatar, in April 2024.
Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
In a number of stories and novels, lost limbs represent both physical and metaphorical loss.
Kate Millett.
Main: Ron Frehm/AAP Background: Warren Leffler/Library of Congress
In 1970, Sexual Politics explained why sexual relationships – and indeed sex itself – are political. ‘The world was sleeping,’ wrote Andrea Dworkin of this book. ‘And Kate Millett woke it up.’
Stained glass designed by Geoffrey Webb depicts Lewis Carroll’s characters in All Saints Church in Daresbury, Cheshire, England.
Peter I. Vardy/Wikimedia Commons
The Book of Job and ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ both make fun of preachy know-it-alls and resist conventions of their genres.
Some Gen Zers and millennials might not identify as readers because they assume the reading that they do doesn’t ‘count.’
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It turns out that identifying as a reader can be more about community, wealth and gender than how much someone actually reads.
While literary texts can nurture deep understandings about racism and power, it’s not enough to provide students with racially and culturally diverse texts.
(Rasheeq Mohammad)
When teachers are self-aware of how their identities impact their values, beliefs and experiences, they are better prepared to help students build bridges between their lives and literature.
Album/Alamy
Her stories and essays unpicked the complexities and after-effects of colonialism in searing and incisive ways.
Ben White/Unsplash
Gradually, with more life experience, I have gained perspective and poetic nerve.