Portable Magic News Today

(1) ATTACKING THE KILLER TOMATOES. “The most overrated metric in movies is erratic, reductive, and easily hacked,” says Vulture, nevertheless, “Rotten Tomatoes Still Has Hollywood in Its Grip”. …“The studios didn’t invent Rotten Tomatoes, and most of them don’t like it,” says the filmmaker Paul Schrader. “But the system is broken. Audiences are dumber. Normal people

An irresistible history of the OED reveals that English is a global language in its sources, its reach and its ownership.

(1) ATTACKING THE KILLER TOMATOES. “The most overrated metric in movies is erratic, reductive, and easily hacked,” says Vulture, nevertheless, “Rotten Tomatoes Still Has Hollywood in Its Grip”. …“The studios didn’t invent Rotten Tomatoes, and most of them don’t like it,” says the filmmaker Paul Schrader. “But the system is broken. Audiences are dumber. Normal people

The nomination for Adi,the first British person of African heritage to become a professor of history in the UK, is a vindication for the academic who was made redundant a week ago

One woman who knows all about banned books, and the attention they inadvertently draw, is Dr Emma Smith, Professor of Shakespeare studies at Oxford University. She's the author of Portable Magic: A History of Books and Their Readers.

From Lady Chatterley’s Lover to novels about trans children, attempts to suppress works of literature tend to have the opposite effect

From kid art criminals to feminist histories, these are our favorite books from the past year.

ILKLEY Literature Festival is bringing a series of author events this October that celebrate all things books.

BOOKSHOPS are celebrating Independent Bookshop Week with a variety of events across Sussex.

Emma Smith’s Portable Magic sparkles with gems of trivia about reading and publishing, including rejected authors, book burnings and masterpieces that failed at first.