After an unexpected visit from mushroom hunters in September, I’ve started paying attention to what pops up after rain. It’s not that I want to eat wild mushrooms, but I would like to know something about them. Their names for example. I do know the one above. It used to be called Indian pipe, but nowadays, it’s called Ghost pipe, a name that works for me. [Late note: See naturalist Kim Gaffett’s helpful corrections in the comments below.]
Just from noticing a little more, I’ve realized that the round yellow ones with the white dots flatten out after a few days. I haven’t decided if I want to pay for the mushroom-identifier app, so if you’re a micologist, maybe you could tell me the little guy’s name.
From my walks in Massachusetts: there’s a black squirrel who lives along the bike path, unusual around here. Kathleen’s garden box features a gigantic aster practically dancing with buzzing pollinators. Pat’s garden box has late-blooming dahlias. The milkweed announces fall.
From my walks in Rhode Island: New Shoreham’s West Side beaches are quiet in the evening. One view shows the goldenrod that covers the island at this time of year. The tiny frog is, I think, a peeper, normally seen in spring. The shark on the rock celebrates a big anniversary for a famous movie that gave white sharks a bad name. The cloud photo shows the sea at its most benign. The one after that shows its dark side, a tombstone for fishermen whose bodies will never be found.
From where I live now: artwork that includes a metal fish by Cassie Doyon and Muppet-like shapes by Joan Mullen. Finally, an early morning view of the Sudbury River from our fitness center.
Photo: Gianmarco Di Costanzo. Lek Chailert devoted her life to rescuing abused elephants. Now caring for 120 of them, she fears for their future in Asia.
The stylist at my salon sometimes talks about her love for elephants. She’s the one who opened my eyes to what elephants and other animals suffer from captivity. I had never thought much about it, assuming that zoos were good, helping children to learn about the wild and saving endangered animals from extinction. Those things may be true to some extent, but not always.
Today’s story is about a woman who set up a rescue operation for elephants in her homeland.
Patrick Greenfield writes at the Guardian, “Saengduean Lek Chailert was five years old when she saw an elephant for the first time. It was in chains, lumbering past her home in rural Thailand on its way to help loggers pull trees from the forest. Back then, she saw the giant mammals like everyone else – as animals that served humans. But that changed the day she heard a scream from the forest.
“Chailert was 16 when she heard the terrible noise. She scrambled through the trees until she found the source: a bull elephant scrabbling in the mud as it tried and failed to drag a log out of a ditch. Every failed attempt was met with punishment from the loggers and mahout, the elephant keeper. …
“ ‘The elephant looked at me and I felt the fear and anger. I felt helpless and confused. My heart hurt a lot,” says Chailert. …
“The incident changed the direction of Chailert’s life forever. She was from a poor family – there was no electricity or school in her village – but she vowed to do something for the animals she loved.
“Before a ban on logging in natural forests in Thailand in 1989, elephants were a key part of the industry. In the early 20th century, there were an estimated 100,000 elephants in Thailand. Thousands were worked to death or left with severe injuries. …
“After the ban, many elephants were used by the country’s rapidly growing tourism industry to give performances and rides. …
” ‘Camp owners were competing with each other for tourists,’ she says. ‘They would train their elephants to dance, ride a motorbike, play darts or hula hoop, walk on a rope or play a harmonica. This brought more suffering to elephants.’
“It took Chailert a few attempts to fulfill her dream of finding a way to care for Thailand’s elephants. In 1996, she sold everything she had and borrowed money to set up an elephant sanctuary. She paid $30,000 for four hectares (10 acres) of land to provide a home to nine elephants.
“She insisted that there would be no elephant rides or performances. Her family invested money to help but after disagreements over how to run the park, she left the project, taking the elephants with her.
“Then, Chailert got lucky. National Geographic was filming a documentary with the Hollywood star Meg Ryan about Thailand’s wild elephants, which were estimated to number 4,000 to 4,400 by 2023; Chailert and her newly released elephants featured in it.
“In the US, a Texas couple, Bert and Christine Von Roemer, saw the TV programand contacted Chailert, donating enough money to buy a 20-hectare parcel of land in the Mae Taeng district of northern Thailand, near Chiang Mai. In 2003, Elephant Nature Park was born.
‘Today, about 120 rescue elephants are at the park, which has grown to more than 1,000 hectares, home to a small fraction of the 3,900 or so domesticated elephants in the country. The sanctuary’s work has an enormous social media following on Instagram and Facebook.
“Elephants arrive from all over Thailand. …
” ‘Some arrive with huge mental issues. Some stand like a zombie; some are aggressive, they swing their head back and forth. When they arrive, we do not allow our staff to use any tools or do anything that might make them feel threatened. We are gentle. We have to give them our love to make them trust us. We have to be patient,’ she says.
“New arrivals are almost always put into quarantine and slowly introduced to the herd. Over time, they are accepted. When their ears start to flap and their tails start to whirl, the elephants are happy, says Chailert. …
“Today, the conservation scheme is funded by visitors and volunteers who pay to work on the project. But despite the success of the sanctuary, Chailert fears for the future of Asian elephants, which she believes are decreasing in Thailand, despite official figures showing a steady increase in the population.
“ ‘Throughout Asia, many people are starting to hate elephants. Human-wildlife conflict is a big problem. Many died from being shot and poisoned,’ she says.
“ ‘Many have lost their habitat and water sources so they have to go to golf clubs and rice fields – places that don’t belong to them. So, people get angry and make the elephant into a monster. The future will depend on the government policy to resolve this,’ she says.”
More at the Guardian, here. PS. The Guardian doesn’t have a paywall. Please consider donating to keep their journalism alive.
Photo: Hannah Goeke/Christian Science Monitor. One of the National Braille Press’s braille machines operating in Boston’s Fenway neighborhood.
As I read today’s article about braille services losing funding, I am struck particularly by an activist’s comment on the importance to blind children of meeting other blind children in the braille libraries. I remember my own insensitivity to disability as a child. Children sense difference sand sometimes they are not kind. Being with others who share an issue like blindness would be huge.
But opportunities like that are now threatened — at both federal and state levels.
Hannah Goeke writes at the Christian Science Monitor, “Marci Carpenter reconnected with her love of reading through her fingertips. When her vision became more limited, learning braille gave her a new way to experience the world. She still remembers how the words of Robert Frost’s poems came alive again through soft bumps embossed on thick paper.
“But it was the Washington Talking Book & Braille Library in Seattle that gave her a place to connect.
“ ‘That was the first time I had ever experienced being around shelves and shelves of braille books. It was this really liberating experience,’ recalls Ms. Carpenter. Over the next five decades, she returned again and again to browse through the Major League Baseball schedule, check out the Constitution – and science fiction – and discover new volumes.
“Today, Ms. Carpenter, who now serves as president of the National Federation of the Blind of Washington, is facing a new urgent need.
“On July 1, the doors to the Washington Talking Book & Braille Library swung shut to the public for in-person exploration and gathering due to a lack of state funding. As needs increase and revenue growth slows, the state of Washington is facing a budget deficit. Ms. Carpenter, who was among those working with legislators to secure funding for libraries, came up empty-handed. …
“The Seattle library is one of nearly 100 libraries and outreach centers nationwide that form the network of the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled, which provides free braille and audio materials through the Library of Congress.
“A small staff is determined to keep the library running. Since July 1, it has offered services by appointment only. ‘We are getting about our normal number of calls,’ writes Danielle Miller, the library’s director, in an email. ‘We have had to turn away people who wanted to come in and use the library.’ …
“Patrons say they are most saddened by that loss. Through in-person workshops and programming, the library provides a sense of belonging and community. Preserving free access to braille materials and encouraging braille literacy – especially for children – is imperative, according to experts and educators. …
“The vast majority of the 26% of employed blind people are braille readers, according to the National Braille Press in Boston. However, despite reading’s link to higher education and employment in the United States, only 12% of school-age blind children in the U.S. can read braille, the NBP estimates.
“While tape recorders and synthesized speech are useful tools, they do not teach the ability to read, write, and spell, says Kim Charlson, the executive director of the Perkins Library in Watertown, Massachusetts. …
“Braille opens the door to independence, not only on a large scale but also in small ways. What is habitual to sighted people becomes a significant hindrance for blind people, says Ms. Charlson. For example, being able to jot down a telephone number, take a note, or create labels to find the warranty for your new stove.
“Ms. Charlson shares a lesson she learned about the everyday importance of using braille after adding an unconventional ingredient to her chili recipe.
“ ‘I just opened it and tossed it in. I added my tomato sauce,’ she says with a laugh. ‘My husband [who is also blind] took a bite and he said, “This is kind of interesting.” And I said, “What do you mean? It’s chili.” And he goes, “Well, it’s got fruit cocktail in it.” ‘ Ms. Charlson now adds braille labels to her kitchen jars and cans.
“While funding uncertainty has braille libraries on edge, at the National Braille Press, President Brian Mac Donald says the demand for braille books remains high. He expects that to continue. …
“Says Mr. Mac Donald, ‘We have parents that have written testimonials saying, “I wish you could have seen the excitement of my son when he read his first book with us … in braille.” ‘
“On a recent weekday, the NBP presses are humming, business as usual, in a brownstone building in Boston’s Fenway neighborhood. In the basement, Elizabeth Bouvier binds books together with practiced precision as the rhythmic clatter of machines pressing dots into thick paper echoes off concrete walls.
“Ms. Bouvier is blind. So are many of her colleagues at the NBP, where a small staff produces millions of braille pages each year, including children’s books.
“The closure of the Seattle library means the shuttering of its children’s room. It also means the end of introductory braille workshops and story times with children’s books featuring braille pages added that allow blind and sighted kids to read together. …
“Like many, Ms. Carpenter was the only blind child in her public school. The closing of the children’s room ‘is a loss of community,’ she says. ‘It is important for blind children to meet other blind children.’
“Ms. Miller’s and Ms. Carpenter’s inboxes have been flooded with inquiries about how people can help. Ms. Carpenter is telling them to wait for the right moment. When funding talks for the next state budget cycle start in 2026, she has no doubt that the blind community will turn up in big numbers to explain why access to the library’s services is essential to them.
“ ‘You know the most impactful action people have is their story,’ she says. ‘Anyone can request to speak with a legislator.’ ”
Art: Richard Estes. From the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, a glimpse of the old days.
Some of us appreciate the old-style telephone booth, its relative privacy, and the way you could still make a call if your mobile was out of juice.
Julian Ring reports at National Public Radio (NPR) that for folks in Vermont, where mountain vistas are jealously protected and limited cell towers don’t always reach, pay phones can be important with or without booths. A local electrical engineer wanted to do something about that.
“Patrick Schlott often finds himself in a cellular dead zone during his drive to work,” writes Ring.
” ‘You go down the road, you turn the corner and you’re behind a mountain and you’ll lose cell coverage pretty fast,’ he says.
“The 31-year-old electrical engineer says poor reception is a common frustration for residents of Vermont’s Orange County. To address this issue, he’s providing his community with a new way to stay connected.
“Schlott has taken old pay phones, modified them to make free calls, and set them up in three different towns across the county. … With just an internet connection, these phones can make calls anywhere in the U.S. or Canada — no coins required. And Schlott covers all the operating costs himself.
” ‘It’s cheap enough where I’m happy just footing the bill,’ he says. ‘You know, if I’m spending $20 a month on, say, Netflix, I could do that and provide phone service for the community. And to me, that’s way more fun.’
“Since Schlott installed the first phone in March last year outside a general store in the town of Tunbridge, Vt., hundreds of calls have been made.
” ‘I knew there would be some fringe cases where it would be really helpful,’ he says. ‘But I never expected it to get daily use and for people to be this excited about it.’
“He says the phones have come in handy for drivers whose cars have broken down nearby. And at a public library in Thetford Center — the most used installation by far — kids have been able to call their parents for rides home or simply to check in.
“Schlott has received some donations to help sustain his project. But he says his one-man funding model may need to adapt if the initiative continues to grow.
” ‘One of the cornerstones that I want to stick to is, no matter what happens on the backend, the calls will always be free,’ he says. ‘And I will figure out a way to make that happen.’ “
Meanwhile in New York City, reporter Rachel Treisman says that “New York City pay phones are officially a thing of history. The last public pay phone was removed from the streets of midtown Manhattan [in May], and is heading straight to an exhibit in a local museum.
“It’s the final chapter in a saga that’s been unfolding since 2015, when the city started uprooting phone booths and replacing them with LinkNYC kiosks, which offer free public Wi-Fi, charging ports, 911 buttons and screens with maps and other services (they also generate revenue for the city).”
There may be no workable pay phones in New York now, but I know that film and ad companies will always have need for a phone booth that looks like it works. There is one on the corner of my late sister’s apartment building that is frequently in demand. I believe it was used in Matrix.
The two pay phone stories are at NPR, here, and here. See also the research by “Mark Thomas, who has spent decades tracking the ‘world of public telephony’ through his website, The Payphone Project.”
Photo: Jim Davis for the Globe. Globe reporter Matt Porter played three holes with llamas Yowie (left) and Elmer (right) at the Mountain View Grand Resort & Spa. For $150 plus green fee, you can have a llama or two join your group.
Here’s a new angle on an old sport: golf with llamas. Not sure this would work for a serious golfer, but it makes a change.
Matt Porter went to New Hampshire to report the story for the Boston Globe.
“Lloyd Van Horn, a general manager, felt business could use a boost. So he decided to promote a few prospects who were down on the farm. Finnegan, his scouting staff told him, should be the first rookie up. Teammates Elmer and Yowie also were ready for a new challenge. Word was all three had shown well on the back fields.
“And yet the call-up was a tough adjustment. Finnegan reached the big club and tried on his equipment. It fit perfectly, but he felt awkward, for he had never played the sport. Same with the other two. None had any clue what they were doing.
“The staff pressed on. After a few training sessions, Finnegan, Elmer, and Yowie became more than just llamas. They were llama caddies.
“[Van Horn] may be on to something with the newest promotion at his Mountain View Grand Resort and Spa. For $150 plus green fee, you can remove all the seriousness from your round by having a llama or two join your group. …
“Llamas cannot swing a club, so they can’t play with you. They don’t speak — they’ll grunt, bray, or cry — so they offer no course knowledge. But they are pack animals, American descendants of those who hauled gear and people through the Andes, so toting clubs is no sweat.
“In theory, they make for fine caddies. As long as you tip them well. And by tip, I mean offer several handfuls of alfalfa pellets. That was how Elmer and Yowie took a liking to me before I played a rain-soaked few holes with them in late July. …
“I had Elmer on the bag, while Yowie, his bonded mate, trotted alongside us. I chose six clubs for the three holes, Nos. 7, 8, and 9, and carefully slid them into Elmer’s custom leather saddle. After a few neck rubs — not the head, advised farm manager Henry Bogdanowicz — of Elmer’s soft, summer-cut fur, and some one-sided chit-chat, they were ready to watch us tee off.
“Golf, by its nature, encourages a long, lazy look at the world. I’m all for that. Whether playing the game or reporting on it in the last two decades, I have gazed upon many animals while hitting one good shot out of every few that I take.
“In South Florida, I saw iguanas and geckos, plentiful there as are squirrels and chipmunks here, skittering in the scorching heat. I have locked eyes with alligators, and let them break the stare. …
“In New England, these clubs of mine have chunked a deep divot or two, but if the post-swing view is a hawk circling over a hillside, or a heron gliding low over the marsh, I’m all the happier.
“Up here in the Presidential Range, course superintendent Kalen Whitney said llamas are welcome to walk his course. They will nibble on the fringes, but unlike goats, they won’t tear grass from the roots. They have soft toes, so they won’t damage the fairways. Those large, gorgeous eyes can look in two directions at once, which could help a hacker like me track my wayward flights.
“Whitney is happy to deal with them instead of porcupines and raccoons, and groundhogs that make him consider reaching for [explosives]. Last year, a moose made a mess of one of the Mountain View Grand’s postage-stamp greens. … A mama bear and her cubs crossed the property a few weeks ago, and were no doubt given the same respect you would gators in any number. …
“The umbrella I carried to the first tee was perceived by Elmer to be a threat. I decided I’d rather be wet than test our friendship. When he sat down on the job, I didn’t mention it.
“Try chatting up a llama caddie and you might be answered with a ‘HAWWWW???’ … If seriously offended, ‘they can scream,’ Bogdanowicz noted. …
“Happily, most of what was heard that day in the mountains was the chirping of the birdies. Before we called it a washout, I played pretty well. Must have been the companionship of the llama.”
Photo: Bennett Whitnell / Hakai Institute. Sunflower stars and vase tunicates grow on the sea floor of Rivers Inlet, British Columbia, in 2023.
There have always been voters who care more about knocking a few cents off the gas they put in their SUVs than researching what’s going on with some small creature in the natural world.
But many of us do care about the natural world and believe that a dieoff in any one area can have repercussions for humanity. Everything is connected.
John Ryan reports at OPB (Oregon Public Broadcasting) about how scientists worked to “crack the case” of melting sea stars.
He writes, “Researchers in Washington and British Columbia say they have solved a deadly mystery that has stumped scientists for more than a decade. They have identified the pathogen behind one of the world’s biggest disease outbreaks: a wasting disease that has turned billions of sea stars into goo – from Alaska to California.
“A mass dieoff of ocean-shaking proportions began among sea stars along North America’s West Coast in 2013. Of 20 species affected, the pizza-sized sunflower star was hardest hit. More than 5 billion sunflower stars, or 90% of their global population, wasted away.
“With key predators of sea urchins largely wiped out, the spiny little grazers proliferated and chewed their way through kelp forests, leading to widespread losses of that productive ocean habitat.
“For 12 years, the cause of the wasting disease was either unknown or, mistakenly, thought to be a virus. Instead, the new study says, it is a strain of bacteria known as Vibrio pectenicida. Other Vibrio bacteria sicken corals and shellfish. One species, Vibrio cholera, causes cholera in humans.
“ ‘It is not surprising that it is a Vibrio,’ said biologist Alyssa-Lois Gehman of British Columbia’s Hakai Institute. ‘It was surprising because it took us so long to find out that it was a Vibrio.’
“Gehman and her coauthors are not the first scientists to claim to have found the culprit behind the worst underwater wildlife pandemic on record. …
“Gehman said the new study, published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, avoids a key oversight of the earlier work by focusing on the sea stars’ blood-like internal fluid and not just its external tissues, where many other microbes live. …
“Gehman’s research team not only found much more Vibrio pectenicida in sick stars than in healthy ones. They were able to isolate the Vibrio, grow it in the lab, and give the wasting disease to healthy sunflower stars by injecting them with the Vibrio, steps the earlier researchers had not achieved. …
“The current study grew out of four summers of experiments at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Marrowstone Marine Field Station, a beachfront facility on Marrowstone Island, near Port Townsend, Washington. Avoiding microbial contamination was a top priority.
“ ‘There’s a lot of ethanol and bleach and betadine,’ Gehman said. …
“Researchers stepped in foot baths when entering and leaving the facility. Each sunflower star, after enduring a two-week quarantine, lived in its own tank with its own supply of sand-filtered, ultraviolet-treated seawater. Researchers avoided touching the stars, even with gloves on.
“In January 2024, after analyzing the previous summer’s data, the researchers found large amounts of Vibrio pectenicida in sick sunflower stars and hardly any in healthy stars. …
“Sunflower stars have become so rare that taking any from the wild is both difficult and potentially harmful to the species.
“ ‘We ran at sort of the bare minimum necessary to get robust and strong evidence,’ Gehman said.”
Continued research is under threat. The administration in DC proposes to cut the key U.S. Geological Survey budget 38% in 2026 and eliminate its biological research arm, which environmental advocates call “the backbone of environmental and ecological monitoring.”
Photo: Claire Kirch. Ashley Valentine (r) of Rooted MKE, a BIPOC children’s bookstore in Milwaukee processes the membership of Shannon Taylor (c) of Pages & Volumes Bookstore in Washington, DC, while Darnelle McGuire-Nelson (l) of B & E’s Literary Treasures in Alexandria, Va. observes during New Voices New Rooms in Atlanta.
The publishing world is in a strange place right now, reaching for good literature as usual but afraid to offend anyone. So it looks like bringing worthy new voices into this environment may be harder than ever. That’s why a new organization of African American booksellers is poised to help.
Publisher’s Weekly has the story.
“The National Association of Black Bookstores, a member-based nonprofit organization which aims to support and promote Black booksellers, announced its launch [recently]. Its mission, NAB2 said in the announcement, includes ‘promoting literacy, amplifying Black voices, and preserving Black culture.’ …
“NAB2 was founded by Kevin Johnson, the owner of Underground Books in Sacramento, Calif., who is also a former professional basketball player and the mayor of that city between 2008-2016. The organization’s board represents a mix of seasoned owners of historic stores and young booksellers who have opened stores in recent years. Among the board members are Maati Primm of Marahall’s Music and Book Store in Jackson, Miss., founded in 1938, and Yvonne Black of Hakim’s Bookstore in Philadelphia, founded in 1959, as well as and Onikah Asamoa-Caesar of Fulton Street Books & Coffee in Tulsa, Okla., and Dara Landry of Class Bookstore in Houston, both founded in 2020.
“Other board members include some of the most prominent names in bookselling: Jordan Harris of Alkebu-Lan Images in Nashville; Janet Webster Jones of Source Booksellers in Detroit; Blanche Richardson of Marcus Books in Oakland, Calif.; and Troy Johnson of African American Book Lit Club in Tampa, Fla. Author Lucille O’Neal, best known as the mother of former basketball player Shaquille O’Neal, is also a board member. …
“Johnson was adamant that Black booksellers should not consider membership in NAB2 as an alternative to membership in the American Booksellers Association, which has recently come under fire for not addressing the concerns and needs of Black booksellers. In response to these criticisms, which came to the fore during a contentious community forum at Winter Institute 2024 in Cincinnati, the ABA sponsored pre-conference programming just for BIPOC booksellers at WI2025 in Denver and Children’s Institute in Portland. …
“NAB2 board members are in full agreement that Black booksellers need an organization that addresses their unique needs. Jones told PW that NAB2 is ‘an effort to pull together Black booksellers and stores in an overarching organization that would not just advocate, but also partner with other aspects of the industry.’ …
“Landry told PW that she has witnessed ‘firsthand how vital Black bookstores are to our communities — not just as places to buy books, but as cultural hubs, safe spaces, and sources of truth and empowerment. I think NAB2 is necessary because it helps connects us, amplifies our collective voice, and reminds us that we are not doing this work in isolation. We’re part of a larger legacy.’ …
“Jones and Landry both emphasized the potential of NAB2 as a vehicle to make the industry more accessible, not just for Black booksellers but also Black authors and readers; distribution, they both pointed out, is a key component in achieving this goal. Landry said she and others affiliated with NABB are committed to ‘making it easier for independent Black-owned stores to get access to the titles our readers are hungry for, while also lifting up indie Black authors who often struggle to get shelf space. Representation matters at every level.’
“The ABA registered its own enthusiasm for the new venture as well, with communications director Ray Daniels [saying] ‘several ABA members are founding board members and we look forward to working with their organization.’ …
“There is some divergence among the Black bookselling community as to how best to achieve their common goal to open up the book publishing industry to Black booksellers, authors, and readers. Last week, Ramunda Lark Young, the owner of Mahogany Books in the Washington, D.C., metro area and cofounder of the Black Bookstore Coalition [BBC] sent out a public letter disclosing that Kevin Johnson had approached BBC leaders with the suggestion that the two groups merge into one group under Johnson’s leadership. …
“ ‘After thoughtful discussion and a leadership vote, we’ve decided not to align with [NAB2] and will continue our work independently,’ Young wrote. ‘Our decision was shaped by member concerns about the significant overlap in missions, the timing and rollout of the request, and elements of Mr. Johnson’s public record that warrant reflection and due diligence.’ …
“Noting that BBC had launched a number of initiatives in the past five years, among them the Black Bookstore Coalition Bestsellers List and the Black Lit Weekend celebration of books, which is led by NAB2 board member Asamoa-Caesar of Fulton Street Books, Young said he was poised to ‘take the next steps toward formalizing our leadership structure to push this group further. … We believe there’s room for multiple efforts to thrive.”
People absorb information differently, so to each his own. I hope today’s attempt to explain scientific differences between reading a book and listening to one doesn’t make you think reading is necessarily better than listening. We all know the vital importance of being read to as a child.
Let’s see what Stephanie N. Del Tufo, assistant professor of education & human development at the University of Delaware, has to say at Science Alert, via the Conversation.
“As a language scientist, I study how biological factors and social experiences shape language. My work explores how the brain processes spoken and written language, using tools like MRI and EEG.
“Whether reading a book or listening to a recording, the goal is the same: understanding. But these activities aren’t exactly alike. Each supports comprehension in different ways. Listening doesn’t provide all the benefits of reading, and reading doesn’t offer everything listening does. Both are important, but they are not interchangeable.
“Your brain uses some of the same language and cognitive systems for both reading and listening, but it also performs different functions depending on how you’re taking in the information.
“When you read, your brain is working hard behind the scenes. It recognizes the shapes of letters, matches them to speech sounds, connects those sounds to meaning, then links those meanings across words, sentences and even whole books. The text uses visual structure such as punctuation marks, paragraph breaks or bolded words to guide understanding. You can go at your own speed.
“Beyond identifying the words themselves, the listener’s brain must also pay attention to tone, speaker identity and context to understand the speaker’s meaning.
“Many people assume that listening is easier than reading, but this is not usually the case. Research shows that listening can be harder than reading, especially when the material is complex or unfamiliar.
“Listening and reading comprehension are more similar for simple narratives, like fictional stories, than for nonfiction books or essays that explain facts, ideas or how things work. My research shows that genre affects how you read. In fact, different kinds of texts rely on specialized brain networks.
“Reading difficult material tends to be easier than listening from a practical standpoint, as well. Reading lets you move around within the text easily, rereading particular sections if you’re struggling to understand, or underlining important points to revisit later.
“A listener who is having trouble following a particular point must pause and rewind, which is less precise than scanning a page and can interrupt the flow of listening, impeding understanding.
“Even so, for some people, like those with developmental dyslexia, listening may be easier. Individuals with developmental dyslexia often struggle to apply their knowledge of written language to correctly pronounce written words, a process known as decoding. Listening allows the brain to extract meaning without the difficult process of decoding.
“People often listen while doing other things, like exercising, cooking or browsing the internet – activities that would be hard to do while reading. When researchers asked college students to either read or listen to a podcast on their own time, students who read the material performed significantly better on a quiz than those who listened.
“Many of the students who listened reported multitasking, such as clicking around on their computers while the podcast played. This is particularly important, as paying attention appears to be more important for listening comprehension than reading comprehension. …
“Each activity offers something different, and they are not interchangeable. The best way to learn is not by treating books and audio recordings as the same, but by knowing how each works and using both to better understand the world.”
Photo: picture alliance. An old-time record player playing a 78 rpm record. This is shellac — ie, before vinyl.
Maybe it’s because I still feel guilty about how my brother and I made a game of smashing our grandfather’s shellac records when we were children, but I can’t help taking sides in the court battle described below. Now that I’m a grownup, I believe that we should protect these oldies, and let the public get at them.
Ashley Belanger reports at Ars Technica that the Internet Archive’s battle with music publishers has ended in a settlement that will, in my view, be to the public’s benefit.
“A settlement has been reached in a lawsuit where music publishers sued the Internet Archive over the Great 78 Project, an effort to preserve early music recordings that only exist on brittle shellac records.
“No details of the settlement have so far been released, but a court filing on Monday confirmed that the Internet Archive and UMG Recordings, Capitol Records, Sony Music Entertainment, and other record labels ‘have settled this matter.’ …
“Days before the settlement was announced, record labels had indicated that everyone but the Internet Archive and its founder, Brewster Kahle, had agreed to sign a joint settlement, seemingly including the Great 78 Project’s recording engineer George Blood, who was also a target of the litigation. But in the days since, IA has gotten on board, posting a blog confirming that ‘the parties have reached a confidential resolution of all claims.’ …
“But despite IA arguing that there were comparably low downloads and streams on the Great 78 recordings — as well as a music publishing industry vet suggesting that damages were likely no more than $41,000 — the labels intensified their attacks in March. In a court filing, the labels added so many more infringing works that the estimated damages increased to $700 million. It seemed like labels were intent on doubling down on a fight that, at least one sound historian suggested, the labels might one day regret.
“Notably, the settlement comes after IA previously lost a court fight with book publishers last year, where IA could have faced substantial damages. In that fight, IA accused book publishers of being unable to prove that IA’s emergency library had hurt their sales. But book publishers, represented by the same legal team as music labels, ultimately won that fight and negotiated a judgment that similarly included an undisclosed payment.
“With both legal battles likely ending in undisclosed payments, it seems likely we’ll never know the true cost to the digital library of defending its digitization projects.
“In a court filing ahead of the settlement in the music label fight, IA had argued that labels had added an avalanche of infringing works so late into the lawsuit to create leverage to force a settlement.
“David Seubert, who relied on the Great 78 Project and manages sound collections at the University of California, Santa Barbara library, previously told Ars that he suspected that the labels’ lawsuit was ‘somehow vindictive,’ because the labels’ revenue didn’t seem to be impacted by the Great 78 Project. He suggested that perhaps labels just ‘don’t like the Internet Archive’s way of pushing the envelope on copyright and fair use.
” ‘There are people who, like the founder of the Internet Archive, want to push that envelope, and the media conglomerates want to push back in the other direction.’ “
More at ArsTechnica, here. Of related interest, at My Dad’s Records, here, my nephew once preserved the old R&B vinyl 78s of the same naughty brother who was guilty with me, but my nephew let the tumblr site go years ago. Check it out anyway.
Photo: Graeme Sloan for the Washington Post. Wild ponies swim across the Assateague Channel in a 100-year-old tradition. RememberMisty of Chincoteague?
Today’s story reminds me of a book series I loved as a child, one that I have learned is too slow for today’s kids, who love slam-bang spy adventures.
RememberMisty of Chincoteague and the annual swim? Hau Chu at the Washington Post wrote about the 100th real-life swim.
“By sunrise at 6:03 a.m. on Wednesday, hundreds of people already had their legs smeared with mud and their brows filled with sweat as their eyes gazed across the Assateague Channel along Virginia’s Eastern Shore.
“They trudged through the marsh to stake out a spot of shoreline. Some woke up as early as 3 or 4 a.m. Others planned more than a year ago from their homes in Massachusetts, Texas and beyond to be in this exact spot.
“These people wrestled with all these things to see wild ponies [at] Pony Swim Lane.
“ ‘Let me tell y’all, you guys are hardcore,’ Chincoteague Mayor Denise Bowden said to the crowd, nearly two hours later, while standing on a pier overlooking the water. … ‘That mud will wash off, but your memories are gonna last forever.’
“The annual wild pony swim at Chincoteague brings thousands of visitors and locals to the town every summer. This year marked the 100th year of the event. Ponies are corralled by the volunteer fire company on neighboring Assateague Island and swim over at slack tide, when the current is still. Officials say they do this to manage the population of ponies that inhabit the land: The festivities culminate in an auction of some of the foals that provides money for the company and veterinary care. …
“Andrea Lucchesi of Southampton, Massachusetts, knew plenty about it. Like some others, she had long dreamed of attending because of her fondness for Misty of Chincoteague, a 1947 children’s novel by Marguerite Henry.
“The book, and subsequent 1961 film, were inspired by a real pony, who is memorialized with a statue along the town’s Main Street. Business signs, restaurant menu specials and residential decorations throughout Chincoteague incorporate the wild creatures. Visitors and locals alike are clad for days in apparel with pony imagery or the Saltwater Cowboys, the group of firefighters responsible for managing the ponies.
“Those cowboys brought the ponies to the edge of Assateague Island at about 8:06 a.m. …
“And off they went. Dozens of ponies’ heads stayed above water and inched closer to the shore within minutes. All made it over to a pen on Pony Swim Lane. …
“Some have criticized the swim over concerns about the horses’ welfare and the desire to tame wild animals. Scott Rhoads, 69, was standing along a fence of the pony pen after the swim. He went back and forth on how he felt about it.
“ ‘You just wonder, these ponies, what they’re thinking,’ Rhoads, a retired small-animal veterinarian, said before taking a second to pause. ‘I worry,’ he paused again, ‘how it affects them, but I’m sure they get over it quickly.’ …
“People like Ashley Le embraced the summer beach town atmosphere and the novelty and spectacle of the event. Le, 28, had been to Chincoteague a few times before but never during pony swim time, she said. She lives in the Logan Circle neighborhood of Northwest Washington but was born and raised in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
“ ‘It’s a very American thing, but it’s not like a military American thing; it’s a small-town American thing,’ Le said. ‘I feel like a lot of unique American things you think of is like July 4 or like fireworks and that kind of stuff. But this isn’t it; this is so outside of that zone. … I think just being here makes me feel like taking a breath of fresh air away from everything that’s happening in America. And the ponies are just so cute.’
“By sunset at 8:12 p.m., hundreds of people were cleaned up at the Chincoteague Carnival Grounds on Main Street. …
“Bowden, 56, was sitting in a chair inside the information booth at the carnival entrance. She was born and raised in Chincoteague. She’s a Saltwater Cowboy, and her family’s participation in the event goes back to her grandfather. But Bowden was injured in an April roundup of the ponies. The wild horses started charging and fighting and threw her off her horse. The distal femur in her right leg was crushed, she said. Still, this was all worth it.
“ ‘If they had to drag me down there on a stretcher … if they had to helicopter me in, it didn’t matter,’ Bowden said. ‘I wouldn’t miss this for anything.’ ”
More at the Post, here. Have you ever been to that part of Virginia? I was there once but didn’t see the ponies. The main thing I recall is eating my first oyster fritters.
Today is my second online ESL (English as a Second Language) class for the ’25-’26 school year. I assist a more experienced teacher once a week — have been doing so for nearly ten years. One task she likes me to do is to go over the writing homework that students put on an edublog.
Lately, it feels like these otherwise highly motivated adults may not be learning much about writing English. Often they seem to have copied from Google Translate or another AI program. What I want to see is a few mistakes in their answers. At the same time, I am wary of accusing anyone of not doing their own work.
Today’s article didn’t give me a clear answer to my ESL situation, but I was intrigued to learn about programs that help identify who the real writer of a book was or whether AI was used in a journal article.
“Over the past few years, researchers have been exploring whether it’s even possible to distinguish human writing from artificial intelligence-generated text. … Research participants recruited for a 2021 online study, for example, were unable to distinguish between human- and ChatGPT-generated stories, news articles and recipes.
“Language experts fare no better. In a 2023 study, editorial board members for top linguistics journals were unable to determine which article abstracts had been written by humans and which were generated by ChatGPT. And a 2024 study found that 94% of undergraduate exams written by ChatGPT went undetected by graders at a British university. …
“A commonly held belief is that rare or unusual words can serve as ‘tells’ regarding authorship, just as a poker player might somehow give away that they hold a winning hand.
“Researchers have, in fact, documented a dramatic increase in relatively uncommon words, such as ‘delves’ or ‘crucial,’ in articles published in scientific journals over the past couple of years. This suggests that unusual terms could serve as tells that generative AI has been used. It also implies that some researchers are actively using bots to write or edit parts of their submissions to academic journals. …
“In another study, researchers asked people about characteristics they associate with chatbot-generated text. Many participants pointed to the excessive use of em dashes – an elongated dash used to set off text or serve as a break in thought – as one marker of computer-generated output. But even in this study, the participants’ rate of AI detection was only marginally better than chance.
“Given such poor performance, why do so many people believe that em dashes are a clear tell for chatbots? Perhaps it’s because this form of punctuation is primarily employed by experienced writers. In other words, people may believe that writing that is ‘too good’ must be artificially generated.
“But if people can’t intuitively tell the difference, perhaps there are other methods for determining human versus artificial authorship.
“Some answers may be found in the field of stylometry, in which researchers employ statistical methods to detect variations in the writing styles of authors.
“I’m a cognitive scientist who authored a book on the history of stylometric techniques. In it, I document how researchers developed methods to establish authorship in contested cases, or to determine who may have written anonymous texts.
“One tool for determining authorship was proposed by the Australian scholar John Burrows. He developed Burrows’ Delta, a computerized technique that examines the relative frequency of common words, as opposed to rare ones, that appear in different texts.
“It may seem counterintuitive to think that someone’s use of words like ‘the,’ ‘and’ or ‘to’ can determine authorship, but the technique has been impressively effective.
“Burrows’ Delta, for example, was used to establish that Ruth Plumly Thompson, L. Frank Baum’s successor, was the author of a disputed book in the Wizard of Oz series. It was also used to determine that love letters attributed to Confederate Gen. George Pickett were actually the inventions of his widow, LaSalle Corbell Pickett.
“A major drawback of Burrows’ Delta and similar techniques is that they require a fairly large amount of text to reliably distinguish between authors. A 2016 study found that at least 1,000 words from each author may be required. A relatively short student essay, therefore, wouldn’t provide enough input for a statistical technique to work its attribution magic.
“More recent work has made use of what are known as BERT language models, which are trained on large amounts of human- and chatbot-generated text. The models learn the patterns that are common in each type of writing, and they can be much more discriminating than people: The best ones are between 80% and 98% accurate.
“However, these machine-learning models are ‘black boxes’ – that is, we don’t really know which features of texts are responsible for their impressive abilities. Researchers are actively trying to find ways to make sense of them, but for now, it isn’t clear whether the models are detecting specific, reliable signals that humans can look for on their own.
“Another challenge for identifying bot-generated text is that the models themselves are constantly changing – sometimes in major ways.
“Early in 2025, for example, users began to express concerns that ChatGPT had become overly obsequious, with mundane queries deemed ‘amazing’ or ‘fantastic.’ OpenAI addressed the issue by rolling back some changes it had made.
“Of course, the writing style of a human author may change over time as well, but it typically does so more gradually.
“At some point, I wondered what the bots had to say for themselves. I asked ChatGPT-4o: ‘How can I tell if some prose was generated by ChatGPT? Does it have any “tells,” such as characteristic word choice or punctuation?’
“[It provided] me with a 10-item list, replete with examples. These included the use of hedges – words like ‘often’ and ‘generally’ – as well as redundancy, an overreliance on lists and a ‘polished, neutral tone.’ It did mention ‘predictable vocabulary,’ which included certain adjectives such as ‘significant’ and ‘notable,’ along with academic terms like ‘implication’ and ‘complexity.’ However, though it noted that these features of chatbot-generated text are common, it concluded that ‘none are definitive on their own.’ ” More at the Conversation, here.
If I were in the room with students, I could more or less stand over them and see how they go about writing. But these are adults, after all, and they want to learn, so the goal is to persuade them how learning is more likely to happen. Let me know if you have ideas that could help me.
Photo: NiemanLab. A late private equity bid to disrupt the sale of the Dallas Morning News to Hearst was foiled by a fourth-generation newspaper owner turning down more money.
Some days journalism and free speech seem threatened on every hand. Whether its officials trying to control what is said or hedge funds buying up newspapers to wring them dry, a girl could get depressed.
Today’s story is about how one newspaper escaped disaster at the eleventh hour.
Joshua Benton at NiemanLab gives his views on what happened. As a former employee of the paper he’s writing about, he gets pretty worked up, but his take is interesting. It reminds me that not all shareholders are greedy. It also reminds that usually they are.
“See, Alden likes to wait until a newspaper merger or acquisition is juuuuust about consummated. Then, right before the final papers get signed, it swoops in with a late bid that promises the seller a bigger payday. Respectable newspaper owners don’t love the idea of selling to Alden, whose relish for laying off journalists is well known. They’ve sometimes built entire strategies around selling to anyone but Alden. But in the tense final hours of a deal, it can be difficult to explain to shareholders why, exactly, they should turn down a few extra million.
“It’s smart: wait until some other buyer has kicked the tires and run the numbers to come up with a valuation. If Random Newspaper Company thinks it can profitably run a paper at the price of $𝑥 million, surely Alden can run it profitably at $(𝑥 × 1.2) million. All it’ll take is 20% more cuts — and that’s Alden’s specialty.
” ‘DallasNews Corporation controlling shareholder Robert W. Decherd, a great-grandson of co-founder George Bannerman Dealey, sent a letter Friday to his former company’s board emphatically stating his complete commitment to the Hearst merger.’ …
“The Morning News was objectively one of the most appealing solo newspapers left for a chain to snare. For one thing, North Texas continues to boom in population. The Metroplex’s population has grown by 2.9 million people since I started there 25 years ago. (For context, that’s equivalent to adding the entire Denver metro area to a place that already had 5.2 million people.)
“But the DMN is also appealing because it hasn’t been gutted as much as most other metro newspapers in its weight class. To be clear: It’s been cut — a lot. When I started there, the newsroom had more than 600 people and bureaus around the world. Today, newsroom headcount is at 157 people. That’s not 600, of course. But 157 is significantly larger than Alden’s (roughly) 70 at the Orange County Register, 50 at the Denver Post, or 50 at the Orlando Sentinel.
“For a chain thinking for the long term — like still family–controlled Hearst — that relative strength makes the Morning News an asset worth investing in. But it also makes the DMN appealing to a raider like Alden, for a very different reason: Taking over a bigger newsroom means more opportunities for cuts. …
“It’s easy to over-romanticize the days of family ownership of newspapers. The Dealey–Decherd family has been running the Dallas Morning News, in one way or another, since 1885. Over that century-plus, there’s plenty to complain about. … But there’s a simple grace to how that era of stewardship is ending. Robert Decherd turned down several million dollars to keep his family’s newspaper out of Alden’s hands. I’m not sure how many newspaper owners would do that today — but I’m glad the number is at least one.”
Photo: David Levene/The Guardian. Olivier Mathieu in Yoann Bourgeois’s “Touch.”
Today’s story is about trampoline choreography, which looks to me a bit like using the flying trapeze without a net.
But who am I to talk? Growing up, we had a trampoline on the porch with no kind of protection. A low, wood ceiling overhead. A concrete floor below. Sometimes I wonder how we managed to grow up at all.
Lyndsey Winship writes at the Guardian, “You may have seen a certain video online of a man climbing some stairs. Actually, he’s repeatedly falling from them but then magically bounces back up, weightless as a moon-walker. Out of sight is a trampoline, which gently catapults his looping, twisting body up the staircase each time he falls, turning a would-be simple journey into an epic, poetic odyssey that has caught the internet’s imagination. Pop star Pink saw it and immediately got on the phone to its creator; Martin Short even made his own version on Only Murders in the Building.
“The act is the work of French choreographer-director Yoann Bourgeois, 43, whose live performances have been touring festivals for years. But the popularity of his videos online has propelled him into new realms. …
“Some people run away to the circus; others have it arrive on their doorstep. Bourgeois’ parents separated when he was growing up in Jura, eastern France, and their house was sold to a circus group, Cirque Plume. Bourgeois was already interested in theatre (and later studied dance) and he began to train with the group. ‘In a way I was looking for a way to get back home,’ he says, via a translator. … ‘I really wanted to continue to be a child. I’ve searched for a life where I can continue to play.’ …
“What Bourgeois plays with are the invisible physical forces that surround us – gravity, tension, suspension – and the interaction between those forces, the performers’ bodies and symbolic ideas. For example in ‘Ellipse,’ the dancers are in costumes like lifesize Weebles with semi-circular bases, rocking and spinning, but never falling. … In ‘Celui Qui Tombe (He Who Falls),’ the performers stand on a wooden platform that rotates, at some speed, then tilts, forcing their bodies to lean at precarious angles to keep their balance. …
“The short piece Bourgeois is bringing to London is called ‘Passage,’ and features a revolving mirrored door and pole dancer Yvonne Smink hanging, swinging, balancing and turning the simple act of crossing a threshold into something of infinite possibilities. Much like the way sculptor Antony Gormley hit upon a universal idea in his use of the body, Bourgeois works with the same kind of directness. …
“Here he is talking about suspension: ‘In physics, suspension means the absence of weight. But if we speak about time, suspension means absolute presence. And I think this cross between absence of weight and absolute presence is like a small window on eternity. That’s what I search for: to catch the present, to intensify the present.’
“Even though Bourgeois seeks to be live in the ephemeral moment, you can see why the recorded versions have gone viral. He admits his work looks good on screen. …
“He’s reaching even more eyeballs now with his pop star collaborations. For the Harry Styles video ‘As It Was,’ Bourgeois designed another revolving platform that saw Styles and his lover being pulled together and apart. ‘Behind the superficial pop veneer of the song, there’s a great sense of despair,’ he says.
“Bourgeois designs his own stage machines, but the revolving floor is, he points out, a very old theatrical device. The question of what’s truly new in art came to the fore when he was accused of plagiarism in a video posted online comparing scenes from his work with scenes from other artists. There are some striking similarities, but Bourgeois is robust in his defense, saying that the works referenced motifs from the history of art, which he considers to be in the public domain. Many circus performers will use the same props. ‘If you use just a frame of a video, it’s easy to make a comparison,’ he says. ‘What is original is the treatment and the creative process.’ …
“What’s certain is that Bourgeois can turn universal ideas into something eye-catching that connects deeply with audiences – imbued with the wonder of circus and the grace of dance.”
Photo: Alex Hecht for the New York Times. A team helps Hunter Noack and his piano travel to scenic locations to give his concerts an outdoor vibe.
What I’m wondering as I read today’s story about classical piano in the great outdoors is whether the project is more about bringing nature into the concert experience or about attracting new audiences. Doesn’t it draw traditional concertgoers? Besides the whale, that is.
Sopan Deb reports at the New York Times that “for the last decade, the classical pianist Hunter Noack has been embarking on an unusual journey: He hauls a thousand-pound 1912 Steinway concert grand piano to places in the outdoors not known for hosting concerts. …
“This summer, Noack, 36, is in the midst of a 10th-anniversary tour of his ‘In A Landscape’ project, which has taken him to Jack London State Historic Park in Glen Ellen, Calif.; Black Butte Ranch in Sisters, Ore.; and Warm Springs Preserve in Ketchum, Idaho. …
“Inspired by the preservationist John Muir, Noack started the project as a way of getting closer to nature, and bringing classical music to rural areas where it is not typically accessible. The idea, Noack said, is to remove the barriers that typically limit classical music to concert venues like Carnegie Hall.
“ ‘What John Muir was trying to articulate is that we don’t just need the wild to recreate in,’ Noack said in an interview. ‘We need the wild to be human, and to be more compassionate, and to be more empathetic. And that’s the medicine that I needed. To be outside.’
“The roots of the project can be traced back to 2015. Noack, a native of Sunriver, Ore., had just moved to Portland, a couple of years after graduating from the Guildhall School of Music in London. He was working odd jobs and struggling with student debt. He considered joining the National Guard, but instead applied for a small grant from a regional arts and culture council in Portland to try an experiment. …
“After graduating from college, Noack, along with a friend from boarding school, created an immersive play in San Francisco. In London, Noack eagerly took in shows by the experimental theater company Punchdrunk.
“ ‘These theater and opera companies were really pushing the boundaries, and that’s what I wanted to do with my art: classical piano,’ Noack said.
“A traveling group of six helps Noack bring his piano to the various remote locations. The team has developed a system for moving the nine-foot instrument. The piano sits on a custom-designed 16-foot flatbed trailer, and can go anywhere that a four-wheel-drive vehicle can. Once they have arrived at a destination, the trailer turns into the stage.
“The first year, Noack rented a piano from a local dealer. But when he said he wanted to bring the rented piano to Mount Bachelor, in Bend, Ore., and the Alvord Desert, in the southeastern part of the state, the dealer did not want to take on the insurance liability. Afterward, in 2017, a philanthropist purchased and donated the piano that Noack uses today.
“Noack didn’t intend for ‘In A Landscape’ to be a full-time job, but the initial audience response was so large that he kept going. … The concerts are held rain or shine, hot or cold. (The temperature during concerts has ranged from subfreezing to above 100 degrees.)
“Among the notable locales where Noack has played are the entrance to Yellowstone (via the Roosevelt Arch in Montana), Joshua Tree National Park in California, Crater Lake in southern Oregon and Banff National Park in Canada. …
“Noack’s shows have even appeared to attract wildlife. He recalled that at a two-night run near the Oregon coast, the piano was located near a cliff. A whale swam up to shore for both performances and lingered for their entirety.
“ ‘I like to think that the whale was enjoying this show,’ Noack said.
“Among other wildlife that made appearances were free-range horses, birds and deer.
“Noack’s ambition to bring a piano to unfamiliar territory is expansive. He said he wants to perform at, among other striking sites, remote villages in Canada; at the Preikestolen, a steep cliff in Norway; during a safari in Africa; atop Vinicunca, the rainbow mountain in the Andes of Peru; and by the salt flats of Bolivia.
“ ‘My hope is that I can use this project, my love of the music and my curiosity about how public lands and natural resources are managed, to explore the world and learn,’ Noack said.”
Photo: Maxine Wallace/The Washington Post. Books with decorated page edges (spredge) are becoming increasingly popular.
Although I always liked the designs on the edge of pages in fancy, old-time books, I never thought about all the ways you can use so-called “spredges” to convey the appeal of your book in the bookshop.
Sophia Nguyen writes at the Washington Post that the phenomenon has recently gained adherents.
“Sumptuous fore-edges — sprayed a bright color, stenciled with city skylines, made to look like pointy teeth — used to be relatively rare. But in recent years, publishers have brought decorated edges to the masses. Edge-painted books are now so widespread that you can find them at Walmart. The feature has spread from romance and fantasy to horror, thrillers and even literary fiction; it’s spread from works by famous authors with ravenous followings to those by debut novelists hoping to make a splash. It even has a (horrifying) portmanteau: spredges. On social media, readers show off floor-to-ceiling shelves crammed full of these books — spines facing inward, of course.
“Jim Sorensen, president of Lakeside Book Company, the largest book manufacturer in North America, recalled the time a decade ago, when a colleague brought back edge-printing samples from a work trip to Europe. ‘Honestly, there wasn’t a whole lot of interest’ from clients, Sorensen said. Times have changed. …
“The surge was driven by a few corners of the publishing world. Subscription companies, such as LitJoy Crate and Illumicrate, seeded interest (and a sense of exclusivity) among readers as they printed relatively small runs that quickly sold out. Self-published authors, selling special editions of their books on their personal websites or at conventions, also helped to popularize the look. This prompted publishers to invest in the trend. When, in 2023, Bloom Books sprayed the pages of Elle Kennedy’s Off-Campus novels in powder blue, the set hit the bestseller lists — an unusual success for a collector’s bundle. …
“Barnes & Noble, after seeing the trend take off with the exclusive editions sold by its sister chain Waterstones, now devotes an entire section of its website to decorated, stenciled and sprayed edges. Decorated edges have ‘developed into an extension of the book experience itself,’ said Shannon DeVito, director of books at Barnes & Noble.
“The printed-edge craze has also opened up a new business niche. Inspired by DIY videos, Stephanie Moreno launched an edge-painting service this year, including live painting at author events. What, after all, could be more limited than an edition only offered at a single local signing? …
“For designers, the edge gives a whole new surface to play with and another opportunity to make a book recognizable. ‘From a creative standpoint, it’s thrilling,’ said Molly Waxman, executive director of marketing for adult fiction and nonfiction at Sourcebooks. Logistically, there were some kinks to work out, she added — such as building in time for ink to dry, so pages don’t curl unattractively.
“As printed edges have flooded into stores, ramping up the competition for eyeballs, ‘the bigger race is being able to manage all of these specs and still hold a price point that’s not going to be so difficult for a consumer,’ [Bloom editorial director Christa] Désir said. …
“When, in the 1500s, people in the English-speaking world started storing their books upright and on shelves — moving them from chests and lecterns — they stored them just as many TikTokers do: with pages facing out. Title information was printed there in ink, said Mark Purcell, director for research and collections at Cambridge University’s libraries and archives.
“Then, starting around the early 1600s in England, modish bookbinders started gilding titles on the spines of books, and so collectors started to reverse their displays. The practice spread gradually and unevenly over a century-and-a-half in what’s called ‘the Great Turnaround.’
“ ‘It depends where you are, how up-to-date you are, how fashionable you are, how wealthy you are, what your library is like, all sorts of things,’ Purcell said. …
“He did note one possible practical consideration favoring the old way: Some libraries threaded chains through their collections for security reasons, and the system only worked with the pages facing out.”
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