The Tournament of Books Shortlist

Audible partners with TikTok

Audible announced a partnership with TikTok to “empower listeners to discover top trending books and stories within the Audible app and web experience.” New features include a dedicated “Best of #BookTok” destination, collections organized by popular BookTok genres (such as Romantacy and Dark Academia), badges that highlight books that are currently trending within the BookTok community, and more. This is one of many indicators that the bookselling and publishing industry is investing heavily in the bookish TikTok space. I mean, I can’t tell you how many promotional emails I’ve received promoting books from BookTok influencers or books that have found new success through this channel.

Are the days of reading books in class over?

According to an informal survey by new york timesWhen I looked into it, I found that most children only read one or two books a year. times They spoke to parents, educators, and students about their high school reading experiences and obtained anecdotal information about lowered expectations. Perhaps curriculum seems to be driven more by standardized testing and the pressure to raise scores that influence school rankings. Common Core sets national standards in English and mathematics and also promotes the use of anthologies. What’s interesting is that, as I was in high school in the 90’s (representative of the class of 2000!), I wouldn’t have been surprised if kids only read one or two complete books in a standard English class back then. In fact, teachers were so worn out with photocopiers that I had to carry Norton Anthology with me before Common Core was officially adopted in California. But we can also say with certainty that we have read Animal Farm, Siddhartha, Pride and Prejudice, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and A Little Girl’s Diary. Opinions vary on whether reading fewer complete books has an impact on students, and I’m completely biased, but it’s hard to imagine that there aren’t significant benefits to reading larger works from cover to cover and being able to think critically about more complex works.

The fascinating appeal of comic book burning in postwar America.

People are often surprised to learn that there was a time in American history when books were burned. This surprise is due in part to a lack of knowledge about how fundamental book censorship was in American history, and to the fact that during World War II, the U.S. government spent so much time, money, and energy on propaganda about Nazi book-burning aimed at promoting patriotism. american You wouldn’t burn books like the Nazis, would you?

they will. In fact, they would do it in the years after the end of World War II.