Ivi Hua on Love and Environmental Change

Announcing recent reviews for Out of the Shadows: Original, deftly crafted, and a fascinating read from start to finish, quot;Out of the Shadowsquot; by Nancy Bentley will be of special appeal for young readers with an interest in Lithuanian immigrant themed historical novels set in World War II era America. With its authors impressively effective and narrative driven storytelling style, quot;Out of the Shadowsquot; is an exceptionally unique and unreservedly recommended pick for middle school and community library fiction collections for young readers ages 10-14. - Midwest Book Review A coming-of-age novel …conjuring a world of family secrets, grief, and shame, the novel gracefully explores how trauma hidden behind silence can affect a family across generations….This is a heartfelt story about family memory, cultural identity, and the power of the stories that bind generations together. – Kirkus Reviews

Three things we just shipped at Humy: 1. Updated Home page Every historical figure now lives in one library. Browse by era or topic, with dates, bios, and real portraits. Search forgives typos, and it covers sources and assignments too. 2. A Community Library Share your primary sources, lesson collections, assignments, and custom figures with your school, or with every history educator on Humy. You can preview someone's work, copy it, and build on it. Everything public goes through an AI-powered moderator first. 3. More voices Each figure gets a voice cast to match its age, era, region, and native language, so voice calls are more immersive and captivating Try it at www.humy.ai

Several weeks ago, I hit a snag and also a breakthtrough. The breakthrough was that I finally acquired scans of the remaining Colossians commentaries for the first 15 centuries project. The snag was that two of them are handwritten, heavily abbreviated Latin manuscripts—the kind that even experts struggle to read. All my OCR techniques that I use for print works were failing. So I needed a new process. I worked with Claude to begin running a series of tests that would help me identify a process that would guarantee the highest accouracy transcriptions with the lowest degree of human investment. That process is the one mapped in the image you see in this post. Several weekends later, the results are in. After running a wide range of samples, I have a process refined that’s guaranteeing solid results within acceptable margins. As a result, this week I’m publishing one of the two commentaries that are a result of this process. The second will need to wait until next weekend due to its length. Venerable Bede (c. 672–735) was an English Benedictine monk, author and scholar who produced some of the most significant works of the Early Middle Ages, including a little-known commentary on the Pauline epistles based on quotations from Augustine. It’s the first of this kind of commentary, based on the florilegium (literary excerpts) of a single church father. This new critical edition is drawn from two manuscripts: Saint-Omer, BM 91 and Urb. lat. 102. There is another modern publication of these works that's copyright and not openly accessible. This fresh transcription and critical edition is intended to freely unlock one of the most prolific writers of the Middle Ages for modern readers of Colossians. Check out the image for the transcription process. The Bede commentary is available on the Colossians Institute site here: https://lnkd.in/e4NgMg5P

Purple Writers? Spiney dye-murex sea snail, where is thy fluids? Manganese and hematite, we love thy caress. Red and blue how long thy vacationed together? Purple, among other characteristics represent; rarity, ambition, wisdom, "author" ity, imagination, creativity. Sounds pretty-much like us. Writers are well thought of by: Nobel Prize, Pulitzer Prize, Man Booker Prize, National Book Award, Edgar Award, Hugo Award, John Newberry Medal, Printz Award, Women's Prize for Fiction, American Award for American Literature, whew, the list goes on. Time will reveal writer new purple-accomplishments in; books, cinema, magazines, journals, signings, scores, radio, concerts, TV... I am giddy with anticipation. As told by this short dissertation.

Jewish stories suppressed. Authors blacklisted. Israeli publishers boycotted. Books targeted with negative reviews. In ADL's State of the Arts, Missing Chapter identifies seven anti-Jewish trends reshaping the publishing industry since October 7, 2023, based on more than 30 interviews with authors and industry professionals. Together, these findings reveal how Jewish identity is increasingly treated as a liability in publishing, limiting opportunities for Jewish and Israeli authors and shaping which stories reach readers. Publishers and literary institutions must recognize and confront antisemitism rather than allowing it to shape whose stories get told. Explore the findings and learn more: https://lnkd.in/ets7Ti2w

📚 𝗕𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝗕𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗪𝗲𝗲𝗸 The American Library Association reported that "[the] Office of Intellectual Freedom documented 5,668 books banned from libraries (66% of the total challenged) in 2025." What I love about libraries is that they’re one of the few places that still offer free access to learning and exploration. Removing books from library shelves limits our ability to discover something new, escape into a story, or learn about perspectives and experiences beyond our own. 𝘛𝘪𝘱𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘵 𝘩𝘰𝘮𝘦: Create a fun reading space - pillows, blankets, table to hold snacks, fun lighting - Make where you or your child reads an enjoyable and relaxing place to be. It is hard to read when uncomfortable! 𝘈 𝘧𝘢𝘷𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘦 𝘉𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘬: 𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒔: 𝑨 𝑺𝒖𝒓𝒗𝒊𝒗𝒐𝒓'𝒔 𝑻𝒂𝒍𝒆 𝟏: 𝑴𝒚 𝑭𝒂𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝑩𝒍𝒆𝒆𝒅𝒔 𝑯𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒚 by Art Spiegelman. According to the ALA, this book has 27 censorship attempts since publication in 1992. And its companion, 𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒔: 𝑨 𝑺𝒖𝒓𝒗𝒊𝒗𝒐𝒓𝒔 𝑻𝒂𝒍𝒆 𝟐: 𝑨𝒏𝒅 𝑯𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝑴𝒚 𝑻𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒃𝒍𝒆𝒔 𝑩𝒆𝒈𝒂𝒏 has 9 censorship attempts. These graphic novels depicts the authors father's experience during the WWII Holocaust. All characters are depicted as animals. As an educator it is a great series to help students learn about and discuss the holocaust. #bannedbookweek #readmorebooks

The Inspiration Atelier: September | Angela Candler on childhood reading as a catalyst for change. The Inspiration Atelier, presented by The KREST House, is a curated sanctuary for stories worth remembering. Through in-depth podcast interviews with authors, artists, and thinkers, each episode ventures beyond the pages of books to uncover the people behind the work. Discover thought-provoking journeys of creativity, ambition, and purpose; where literature, art, and storytelling converge to inspire. In the fourth episode of The Inspiration Atelier, presented by The KREST House, host Raj Moodley interviews author, activist and co-founder of the South African Independent Authors Association, Angela Candler. Having experienced firsthand the struggles of a child that has difficulty reading, Angela is passionate about making a difference in the present reality of the declining literacy levels in South Africa. With her background as a Mindfulness Master Practitioner, she has taken an active approach to easing the anxiety felt by young children through the collection of Mrs Mindfulness Monsters activity books. Having published both literary non-fiction, and fiction novels, Angela waxes lyrically on the power of creativity as an individual emancipation through struggles. On the SAIAA front, Candler and Michelle Hitchens believe in creating an ecosystem of change for the better within the South African book industry, with transparency and empowerment at the forefront. For your listening pleasure: https://lnkd.in/gmkDdJKH. The KREST House is a publisher in South Africa – or as we like to call it, a storytelling empire on a mission to share the most inspiring stories in the world. To have your book considered for publication under our banner, visit the KREST Publishers page on our website www.kresthouse.co.za #PublishingHouse #LiteraryArt #SouthAfricanAuthors #TheKrestHouse #StorytellingEmpire Rajesperi Moodley Angela Candler

For Thymos, the process began with understanding the world behind the name. A publishing house shaped by philosophy, psychology, culture and the social sciences needed an identity that could carry both thought and feeling. Our creative team shaped a visual language built around storytelling, typography and letters that become image. Happy to share our identity work for Thymos, an independent publishing house from Istanbul. Think. Feel. Evolve. Designed to be inherited.

The latest book by Ainehi Edoro-Glines, a Mellon-Morgridge Associate Professor in the Humanities, zooms in on how African writers use the forest in their novels. While Europeans often viewed the forest as a space that can be defined and exploited — both in real life and in literature — African storytelling sees the forest as something that cannot be owned and marks the limits of the world as we know it. “We can enter and come back in, enter and come back in,” she explains. “And when we develop a relationship with that space, we can find radically new knowledge to reimagine our world. From a storytelling perspective, it is essentially a kind of laboratory where a storyteller can break down a world and show us ways that we can rebuild it.” https://lnkd.in/gmiYZp3y