Felicity

Why is listening to stuff on your phone without headphones a thing now? Like, can we please just get back to the social contract and caring for others and not being a selfish, entitled person

What’s driving the gender gap in our reading habits? Men read less than women. Now one writer has set up a publishing house to focus on literary fiction by male writers: “overlooked narratives” on fatherhood, masculinity and other topics.

What's driving the gender gap in our reading habits?

www.smh.com.au/culture/book...

Heart Week I gave you up for Heart Week: it was that or start to exercise and I was tired so tired.

From ‘Realia’ (2001)
—Kate Camp

#PoetryAotearoa #poetry #booksky #NewZealand

love this new york times clip. they recently did a story about how sesame street's set has changed over the years, along with our urban politics.

IG nytimes

Allan Ahlberg, Whose Children’s Books Were Best Sellers, Dies at 87

🎁 Gift article (NYT)

Allan Ahlberg, Whose Children’s Books Were Best Sellers, Dies at 87

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/05/b...

A genre of swords and soulmates: the rise and rise of ‘romantasy’ novels From Sarah J Maas to Rebecca Yarros, the authors writing blends of fantasy and romance have found huge commercial success – largely thanks to TikTok

A genre of swords and soulmates: the rise and rise of 'romantasy' novels

www.theguardian.com/books/2024/f...

A Rare Copy of ‘The Hobbit’ Is Found on an Unassuming Shelf

🎁 Gift article (NYT)

A Rare Copy of ‘The Hobbit’ Is Found on an Unassuming Shelf

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/w...

August Third, Redux I do not want to live my life in dread Of Surreptitious Sonnet Day each year And always write a villanelle instead. On Surreptitious Sonnet Day I said That this time I would find my sonnet gear -- I do not want to live my life in dread. I swore I wouldn't spend the day in bed Watching informercials, drinking beer, And writing goddamned villanelles. Instead, I'd march along the old iambic tread Imbibing the pentameter for cheer: I do not want to live my life in dread. Am I the only poet in whose head The couplets circle round inside, and sneer They'd rather be a villanelle instead? The lines align, the sonnet form has fled In favor of a form that’s more austere; I do not want to live my life in dread -- So, could you use a villanelle instead? .by Marcus Bales

Happy Sonnet Day!
My envy knows no bounds
Another from Marcus Bales

Opinion | The Disappearance of Literary Men Should Worry Everyone

🎁 Gift article (NYT)
The Disappearance of Literary Men Should Worry Everyone

www.nytimes.com/2024/12/07/o...

Opinion | Bad Bunny Just Wants to Stay Home. So Do I.

🎁 Gift article (NYT)
Bad Bunny Just Wants to Stay Home. So Do I.
www.nytimes.com/2025/08/03/o...

Worrye not about 'being productive,' for thou art not a product. Thou art a star daunsinge yn a hopeful skye. A signal blinking across centuryes and worldes. Thou art a song performid just once and perfectlye.

I Want This Poem Read Aloud at My Funeral (Gift Article) Jane Kenyon’s “The Pond at Dusk” is a quiet, mischievous reckoning with nature and mortality. Our critic A.O. Scott plumbs its depths.

🎁 Gift article (NYT)
I Want This Poem Read Aloud at My Funeral

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

From Gen Z to Millennials: Why audiences can’t get enough of this summer romance streaming hit Now in its third and final season, The Summer I Turned Pretty is nothing short of a global phenomenon.

From Gen Z to Millennials: Why audiences can't get enough of this summer romance streaming hit

www.smh.com.au/culture/tv-a...

Listen up! Why 2024 was the year of the audiobook With download figures at a high, all-star Hollywood voice casts and Spotify’s entry into the audiobook streaming business, the format is enjoying a surge in popularity

Listen up! Why 2024 was the year of the audiobook

www.theguardian.com/books/2024/d...

‘A ticking time bomb’: How Australia’s reading slump is making us stupid Low literacy. A drop in recreational reading. Students who can’t finish texts. A book industry of falling margins. The decline in reading poses a risk to us all.

'A ticking time bomb': How Australia's reading slump is making us stupid
#australiareads #austlit #ausbooks #booksky #tlsky

www.smh.com.au/national/a-t...

To read or not to read? A new report from Australia Reads surveys the reading habits of different segments of the Australian population and offers advice to motivate wider reading.

A new report surveys the reading habits of different segments of the Australian population and offers advice to motivate wider reading.

#reading #writers #ausbooks #auslit #australiareads #publishing

Without writers and thinkers, Sydney risks becoming a cultural ghost city As Australia’s publishers grapple with how to foster a new generation of local writers, a similar crisis is being experienced by the nation’s music industry.

Without writers and thinkers, Sydney risks becoming a cultural ghost city (SMH)
www.smh.com.au/national/nsw...

We inventid art, poetrye, and musique and we hadde an amazinge fuckinge tyme.

I think that if you're a writer and you don't invent a word every now and then you're missing out on a solid chunk of the fun.

Journalistic Four: "Thys happenid."
Realistic Four: "Thys coulde happen."
Fantastic Four: "Thys cannot happen."
Science Fictioun Four: "Thys hath not happened yet."

‘Sydney is not a shallow city’: Major change for Sydney Writers’ Festival The development is good news for writers – and their readers.

'Sydney is not a shallow city': Major change for Sydney Writers' Festival
#BookSky

www.smh.com.au/culture/book...

More Purring, More Buying? Why Bookstores Showcase Their Pets.

🎁 Gift article (NYT)
More Purring, More Buying? Why Bookstores Showcase Their Pets

#BookSky #TLSky #Skybrarians

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/23/b...

Want Safer Neighborhoods? Invest in Libraries When library funding goes up, crime tends to go down

A recent study published in the Journal of Cultural Economics examined what happened when a new library branch opened in Kansas City, Missouri. #TLsky #KentuckyLibraries

bit.ly/4o1YHQc Follow ‪@everylibrary.bsky.social for more.

London library forced to briefly close after fox 'made itself comfortable' inside Foxes have been known to live everywhere in London from back gardens to the top of the Shard

Fantastic

On a green steel girder under a highway overpass, a young woman in yellow tank top and denim shorts lounges in the sunlight, laying on her stomach with chin resting on the back of her hand and elbows propped on metal reinforced with huge rivets. Playfully she kicks up her feet behind her as she glances out at gray cloudy skies. Indirect light shines through a break in the distant clouds. A dodo ventures toward the edge of the structural support, which is painted in a flaking triangle of caution yellow. At the very end, an apple dangles on a string in the open air. A pale yellow of streak of sunset lines the bottom of the panel but so high up, no ground is in sight.

A WORLD OF LIGHT AND SHADOW (2011)
Acrylic on Gessoboard - 20” x 40”

I’m as surprised as the next person when some of these ideas come to me and tell me that they need to be painted, especially the ones that come in my dreams. 1/3

Rümeysa Öztürk describes the library in the prison where she was held for 45 days for co-authoring an op-ed

The Essential Jane Austen

🎁 Gift Article (NYT)
The Essential Jane Austen
Spoiler warning: towards the end of the article, there are synopses of JA's six books, some of which give away important plot points.
#TLSky #Skybrarians #BookSky

www.nytimes.com/article/jane...

Netflix announces series adaptation of Miles Franklin's classic 'My Brilliant Career' The Australian classic novel My Brilliant Career is being adapted into a Netflix series, starring a star-studded cast of Australian actors.

Netflix announces series adaptation of Miles Franklin’s classic ‘My Brilliant Career’

womensagenda.com.au/latest/netfl...

The gentle, slow, agonising beautifying of book-reading Supermodel Kaia Gerber is a huge celebrity. In recent years, she's cultivated a new look - that of the beautiful reader.

The gentle, slow, agonising beautifying of book-reading (Jessie Tu)
womensagenda.com.au/latest/the-g...

Too busy to read to children? You’re missing out on one of life’s greatest joys Studies have found that reading aloud to children is at an all-time low.

Sydney Morning Herald: Too busy to read to children? You're missing out on one of life's greatest joys (Richard Glover)

www.smh.com.au/culture/book...