Book Marks: Bleak World Book Day, No Free Speech For Holiday

World Book Day was on 23 April, and for that, local English daily The Star puts the spotlight on several independent bookstores in the Klang Valley that have become the places to be for a bookishly good time. "Whether it's a husband-and-wife team chasing their dream of becoming booksellers, a group of nature lovers pooling resources to open a nature-focused bookshop, or a veteran bookseller helming a socialist-leaning hub for progressive literature in Petaling Jaya, each example reflects how a deep and personal passion for books can give rise to strong, enduring communities."

One is less sanguine about the indie book scene in Hong Kong, a place that has been under Beijing's thumb for years. The imposition of an ambiguously worded colonial-era sedition law has forced certain books off shelves and put people behind bars for publishing allegedly seditious material. Nevertheless, some Hong Kong bookstores persist, so if you're in the neighbourhood, drop by.

TikTok meanwhile has a round-up of news for World Book Day that further cements BookTok as a powerful hype machine that brings authors and titles to the fore. One can only hope it will be a force for good.

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Author Ryan Holiday was scheduled to give a lecture at the US Naval Academy but that even was cancelled when Holiday "refused to remove slides from his planned presentation that criticized the academy's decision to remove nearly 400 books from its main library," CNN reports.

Among the sharp words in that report, most were from Holiday, but this stuck out:

"If you can't be trusted around Stacey Abrams' memoir or Maya Angelou, you probably have no business being a Navy SEAL or holding an assault rifle or flying a fighter jet," Holiday said. "You're either an adult or you're not."

Exactly. Still, the culture wars continue.

In a US Supreme Court case where the state of Maryland's Montgomery County is being challenged by parents who don't want their kids taking lessons that use LGBTQ-themed material, Penguin Random House, the Authors Guild, and the nonprofit Educational Book and Media Association have filed a written submission. The parties have argued for the inclusion of such books and expressed concerns that ruling in the parent's favour would limit students' reading choices and restrict their access to diverse perspectives and experiences.

Mary Rasenberger, CEO of the Authors Guild, strikes a bright, strident chord with this statement...

Reading about different people doesn't indoctrinate children any more than reading about space exploration makes a child an astronaut, or reading biographies makes them adopt the exact life choices of historical figures.

These stories don't override a child's own beliefs—they prepare them for the reality that they'll share in classrooms, communities, and workplaces with people from all walks of life.

LGBTQ-themed reads is a major issue at home, where the authorities and NGOs use law and religion to get any 'objectionable' material off our shelves. Even the most progressive toe the line to avoid the hassle of dealing with protesting groups. How prepared are our future generations for life and the world when so much of what they learn is excessively shepherded?

I may be reaching here but the current US kakistocracy owes its rise a great deal to the conservative, States-centric propaganda in US schools and media, and shades of that have begun to appear here.


All right, moving on...

• Former Washington Post staff writer Gillian Brockell is horrified and livid to learn that ChatGPT can now "write" articles after being fed reporting made by her colleagues whose styles the AI attempts to emulate. "When I left the Washington Post in 2023, my colleagues and I were worried AI would hoover up our work and enable 'zombies' to churn out stories based on our reporting and writing styles," she posted on BlueSky. This, of course, opens doors to places many would not wish to go. The day AI can impersonate writers, living or dead, may already be here. How prepared are we to meet this challenge?
• "I never imagined that so many people would read [Convenience Store Woman] in Japan, let alone in other countries ... It explores some quite unique aspects of Japanese culture." Japanese author Sayaka Murata sits down with The Guardian for a revealing interview about her books, her writing life, and Japanese culture ahead of the release of her latest novel, Vanishing World.
• Self-publishing can feel like a fool's errand, but for Penrith native Colin Hindle, it's worth the effort. The pandemic forced him to close his business, so he went-a-rambling in his area, making sketches and notes. Most of these went into his two self-published books and– holy $#!+ what sketches they are! The detail! The covers don't do the books justice though. Someone should pick them up and help him repackage them.
• Pope Francis passed early this week, and some of the obits mentioned his work as a bouncer(!), so other out-of-expectations revelations about the late pontiff should no longer surprise. Like the fact that he also taught literature at a secondary school, according to Literary Hub columnist Nick Ripatrazone. Francis's approach to teaching reminds one of how he engaged others as pope, a quality that will perhaps continue to inform his papacy long after his passing.
• A UK-based independent press is pushing Vietnamese literature worldwide, and it has released three books, "by and about Vietnamese women, spanning three centuries." Might this be the start of a new wave? On a slightly related note is this list of fiction and non-fiction about the Vietnam War, which includes Graham Greene's The Quiet American.
• "I have been writing poetry for the last fifty years, having published twelve books of poems, along with two collections of literary essays and one novel to my credit. And in the bargain, I have received some awards too. But in spite of such seemingly impressive biodata, not a single cultured and literature-loving Bengali bhadralok, outside the small literary circle of Bengali poetry, has heard of me." Bengali poet Ranajit Das's musings on whether he's a success or failure can be found in On Failing, a collection of essays edited by Amit Chaudhuri.
• The latest Ai-assisted writing and self-publishing platform epubs.ai is promising a lot to independent writers but is it just hype? And will there be assurances that writers using the platform won't have their work scraped to train AI models that will be "helping" others with their writer's block?
• "Simplified spelling looks silly. There’s no getting around that. For most readers today, the mere sight of words like 'nolej' or 'edukayshun' ... instantly sets the funny bone a-tingling, and no matter how logical the argument for spelling reform, they’ll never see it as anything but a source of amyuzmint. In that sense, not much has changed since the 1800s." Gabe Henry looks at the use of bad spelling in early American comedy.
• Received a bad review - or a dozen - for your work? All part of being a creator, and you're in good company. "...even the most popular authors will cop a mealy-mouthed assessment. It's bad enough when it's from an anonymous or faked name amateur reviewer on inclusive, user-friendly platforms like Goodreads, but it stings even more when it's from a professional critic in a well-regarded publication.
• "From the tragedies of American history and the terrors of dictatorship, to reality television's roots in home video to connections with spirits, ancestors, and families, these works embody the human condition. People are weird, people are mean, people are complicated, and people are beautiful." Wendy J. Fox compiles a list of 11 titles from small presses to read for Electric Literature. Meanwhile, C.T. Jones puts together another reading list for a little escapism to distract from the dumpster fire that is the tRump administration, part two.