Literary Links

You Can Watch ‘Kaleidoscope’ Episodes in Any Order. A Complete Guide

I love novels with unusual structures. So when I read that the episodes of Netflix’s new drama Kaleidoscope could be viewed in any order, I had to check it out. This article from CNET discusses how several choices can affect the way viewers experience the story.

Have you watched Kaleidoscope? What did you think of this form of presentation?

Categories: How Fiction Works, Television

5 amazing things people have already done with ChatGPT

We’re now seeing so many references to ChatGPT, an artificial-intelligence program, that I may have to give it its own category. Here’s a list of things ChatGPT can do, only one of which involves writing.

Category: Writing

Are You the Same Person You Used to Be?

“Researchers have studied how much of our personality is set from childhood, but what you’re like isn’t who you are.”

Joshua Rothman considers psychological and philosophical approaches to answering this question. “We change, and change our view of that change, for as long as we live,” he concludes. And the question itself is central to the study of Life Stories in Literature.

Categories: Life Stories in Literature, Literature & Psychology

Opinion | Rate your life — if you dare — while you’ve got time to change it

“Vincent Burke was a reporter for the Cleveland News and worked in advertising. He is the author of ‘Forgiveness: A Gay Man’s Memoir.’”

A corollary of Life Stories in Literature is that by changing your life story, you can change your life. At the age of 87, Vincent Burke wrote his memoir. Here he advises us not to wait as long as he did. “When you’re young, you can change things.” 

Category: Life Stories in Literature

‘GOAT,’ ‘inflection point’ and ‘quiet quitting’ should be banished, annual list says

I often skip over the end-of-year “most important words of the year” articles, but I always read Michigan’s Lake Superior State University’s  Banished Words List.

Category: Writing

Rick Rubin Wants You to Read Sherlock Holmes Before You’re 21

“‘The earlier the better,’ says the record producer and author of the forthcoming book ‘The Creative Act: A Way of Being.’ ‘The stories are engaging and they train readers to look deeply into all they see. A great primer for awareness practice.’”

Category: Reading

America’s Public Libraries Reflect the Systematic Failures and Social Inequality of Our Country

Deirdre Sugiuchi talks with Amanda Oliver, author of Overdue: Reckoning with the Public Library:

The constant stress, verbal and sometimes physical abuse took its toll on Oliver’s mental and physical health, causing her to abandon the job she loved and write Overdue: Reckoning with the Public Library, a heart-wrenching polemic challenging the romanticized ideal of being a librarian.

Category: Libraries

STUDENTS TAKING BACK ‘OWNERSHIP’ OF EDUCATION

Many of the censorship cases we’ve been reading about over the last couple of years originated in Texas. “The Lone Star State has more school book bans in place than any other state in the country, according to a report from PEN America,” writes Michelle Pitcher in this article for the Texas Observer. Pitcher interviews Cameron Samuels, a former student at Seven Lakes High School in Katy Independent School District, west of Houston, and now a freshman at Brandeis University. Samuels spoke out at a school board meeting in 2021 about the restrictions at the high school. Samuels continues to work to combat censorship as the first honorary youth chair of Banned Books Week.

Categories: Censorship, Libraries

What are the benefits of reading books? A lot, actually

This article, produced by NBC’s Today show to publicize its book club hosted by Jenna Bush Hager, probably won’t tell you anything you don’t already know. But it never hurts to see a summary of the benefits of reading. And there are some links here to research behind the assertions.

Categories: Book Groups, Reading

© 2023 by Mary Daniels Brown