Reading is so sexy

They have killed skinny jeans and continue to shame millennials for having side partings in their hair. They think using the crying tears emoji to express laughter is embarrassing. But now comes a surprising gen Z plot twist. One habit that those born between 1997 and 2012 are keen to endorse is reading – and it’s physical books rather than digital that they are thumbing. Chloe Mac Donnell, The Guardian

Five of the best books about gossip

Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare

The play’s title is a triple entendre: in Elizabethan England, “nothing” was slang for “vagina”, and was pronounced as “no-ting”, suggesting “noticing” – a nod to the gossip and eavesdropping that carve the plot. A conversation about Beatrice’s “love” for Benedick is staged for Benedick to overhear, and vice versa, which leads to the pair getting together. Later, Borachio is overheard bragging about tricking Claudio by pretending to woo his love interest, Hero, and is arrested.

questo è uno dei cinque libri sui pettegolezzi consigliati da Ella Creamer, The Guardian

A Brief History of the United States’ Accents and Dialects

The United States may lack an official language, but a road trip across the country reveals dozens of different accents and dialects of English that serve as living links to Americans’ ancestors.

What’s the difference between these two linguistic terms? Accents center on the pronunciation of words, while dialects encompass pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar. They both often vary by region. Megan Ulu-Lani Boyanton, Smithsonian

(Nella foto: New Orleans)

The new generation of novelists writing about motherhood

Recent novels of motherhood explore work and identity, creation and loss, love, ambivalence, even regret. They are political without being didactic, furious and funny. If they could be said to have one thing in common, it is their corporeality. They are all unflinchingly of the body. Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett, The Guardian