Margaret Sullivan the media columnist at the Washington Post has a brand new book talking about the lack of local journalism and the big need for it. From 2004 to 2019, 2,100 newspapers in the United States have gone out of business. https://apple.news/A-HYqy6fpTQ-ztlpL7DCaZw

A good piece in yesterday’s Los Angeles Times about independent bookstores out there, and the recent intense interest in diversity. The article also mentions the since 2009 there has been a 35% increase in the number of independent bookstores in the country: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2020-07-16/los-angeles-independent-bookstores-diversity

‘Nothing in the world is like this-
a bright white page with
pale blue lines. The smell of a newly sharpened pencil
the soft hush of it
moving finally
one day
into letters.’
― Jacqueline Woodson, Brown Girl Dreaming

‘Adult librarians are like lazy bakers: their patrons want a jelly doughnut, so they give them a jelly doughnut. Children’s librarians are ambitious bakers: 'You like the jelly doughnut? I’ll get you a jelly doughnut. But you should try my cruller, too. My cruller is gonna blow your mind, kid.’
                                                           ― John Green

‘And on the subject of burning books: I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength or their powerful political connections or their great wealth, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and have refused to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles.

So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.’
                      ― Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country