The Reading Room

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CowperKettle

00:04

Multi-level barrage of US book bans is ‘unprecedented’, says PEN America. Censorship at local to federal level recalls past authoritarian regimes ‘but this has never all happened at once’.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/07/book-bans-pen-america-censorship

Peter Shor

00:18

@ClaraDíazSanchez Just because it's nonsense, it doesn't mean it's AI-generated.

I think his question https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/28634/why-did-funke-title-this-story-the-thief-lord was copied from the question Why did Gurnah title this story "Cages"?.

Of course, the question about Gurnah's title makes sense, while the question about Funke's title doesn't. But somehow the OP may not have realized that.

And I checked for this behavior because he asked a question on French.SE which was essentially lifted from a question on Latin.SE in a way that also made absolutely no sense. See here for details.

Peter Shor

00:34

Curiouser and curiouser.

9 hours later…

Rand al'Thor

09:57

@PeterShor Do you want to post an answer, so that bounty doesn't go to waste? Even if the question is weird, might as well get it off the Unanswered list.

Clara Díaz Sanchez

10:15

@PeterShor That's true, but there were enough "hallucinations" in the question (like "the scene where the protagonist encounters a red rose holds significant symbolic meaning" - total nonsense!) that I felt AI-generation was a reasonable hypothesis.

Clara Díaz Sanchez

10:26

@PeterShor So the French.SE question was closed for needing details and clarity. Maybe we could VTC the "Red Rose" question on the same grounds.

Rand al'Thor

11:17

@ClaraDíazSanchez I'm not saying you're wrong (honestly I haven't even followed all the revisions of that question), but humans hallucinating nonsense also happens :-)

Were you around SFF/Lit in the times that user37920 was posting? (weirdest example)

Bookworm

11:37

Q: Where did Marcus Cicero admit the wisdom of his brother Quintus’ advice?

In his Rerum memorandarum libri (books of things to be remembered), Petrarch wrote: Verum ut appareat multum quenque facilius aliis consulere quam sibi, idem ille Quintus Cicero Marco Ciceroni fratri consilium dedit, quod si servasset potuisset forsan in lectulo suo mori, potuisset integro cadav...

1 hour later…

Clara Díaz Sanchez

12:54

@Randal'Thor I was around, but I don't remember that user. It seems to have been dealt with swiftly and efficiently though.

Peter Shor

13:22

@Randal'Thor I'm a little afraid that if I answer the question, I'll encourage him. But maybe I should answer the question and say that there is nothing exceptional about the title, and I don't understand why he asked the question.

I'll think about it.

2 hours later…

Clara Díaz Sanchez

15:35

@PeterShor and the copy-paste explains why he refers to Funke's novel as a "short story"

2 hours later…

Bookworm

17:12

Q: Josephine Tey: is there a "7, 8, 9" similar to the "Three by Tey" or "4 5 6" volumes published in the US c. 1940-50s

I hold (from my parents) some nice hardcovers of Josephine Tey 3-novel compendiums: Three by Tey" or "4 5 6". They are falling apart from rereading so I ordered new replacements through "A". (picture of 4 5 6) https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTf4gSnId2NVn0d7_PXh03wVZfnesFC...

josephine-tey

5 hours later…

Bookworm

22:03

Q: I am looking for a book without knowing the author or title

Who Am I? Who wants to know? Just kidding. The question of personal identity, in the deepest sense, is one of the most crucial to answer, and one of the most difficult questions that human beings can take on. And isn’t that ironic? … think that self-knowledge would be fairly easy. After all, we h...