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The international popularity and utility of English doesn’t show any signs of slowing, but what will the language look like after a few generations of increasing usage? The Economist gives a brief answer, but it doesn’t address the ways English is or will be used by different people to tell their stories. Damian Fowler addresses this when he asks, “[W]hat does it mean to have an American point of view,” or to call a book American in tone, as opposed to British or just English-language? In a blog post for The Paris Review, Fowler offers an answer: American novels are characterized by “a spare, sure sense of narrative, reflected in a colloquial voice, free of affectation.”

There’s been a lot of talk about Young Adult writing lately – we’ve covered it here and here and here – but where did YA come from, anyway? The New Yorker profiles writer S.E. Hinton, whose debut novel The Outsiders launched the genre, by way of answer.