This January, Penguin Random House, Goodreads, Mashable and the National Book Foundation are sponsoring National Readathon Day, a holiday which encourages Americans to join together for a marathon reading session. If you’d like to take part, you can start a fundraiser to help support reading education, or else enlist your friends and family to read with you on January 24th from noon to 4 p.m.
Longreads
Table 4 2014
The Table 4 Writers Foundation was founded in memory of Elaine Kaufman, a larger-than-life literary personality and hostess who supported NYC writers at her restaurant for many years, and awards grants to promising writers for unpublished work. The 2014 winners have just been released, and their prizewinning work can be read online. There will also be a gala in honor of the winners on April 30 in NYC, and tickets can be purchased here.
Thanks, Amigo
In his upcoming book Borrowed Words, Philip Durkin looked at the languages that have shaped English over the centuries, charting the influence of Spanish, Italian, French and more. At Slate, he sums up his most important data with the help of an interactive tool.
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LA Times Lays Off Reviewers
The Los Angeles Times book review laid off its entire staff of freelance book reviewers.
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Witches of Walgreens
In the spirit of Alex Mar's Witches of America and Stacy Schiff's The Witches: Salem, 1692, here's a piece from Atlas Obscura on pinpointing the exact site of the Salem witch trials. Spoiler alert: it overlooks a Walgreens parking lot.
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