TODAY: In 1946, American artist, author, translator, and illustrator Wanda Gág, best known for writing and illustrating the children’s book Millions of Cats, the oldest American picture book still in print, dies.
- Letters from protests across the country: From Vermont, Major Jackson on defending that “part of Black life you don’t actually see” • Indigo Moore on poetry and protest in Sacramento. | Lit Hub Politics
- “I don’t think it’s a moral issue when people decide to be reclusive and anti-social. Why should anyone have to participate in this society?” Ottessa Moshfegh on isolation, self-awareness, and cancel culture. | Lit Hub
- Looking for Middle–Earth? Explore the (middle-)English landscapes that influenced a young Tolkien. | Lit Hub
- Lauren Groff on Kent Russell’s Florida odyssey, Sarah Gerard on Emily Temple’s meditation on meditation, Jennifer Szalai on John Bolton’s bloated White House memoir, and more of the Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks
- Now that we’re halfway through 2020, here’s a look at the year’s best crime novels, mysteries and thrillers, so far. | CrimeReads
- Rafia Zakaria on the publishing industry’s allies of whiteness: “those who are invested in maintaining the architecture of white supremacy even as they pretend to deplore it.” | The Baffler
- “Morrison taught us not to be afraid of our age or diminish the adventures available to us just because they didn’t manifest by the turn of a new year.” Lessons from Toni Morrison on finding success on your own timetable. | Zora
- “Possessed by some deranged self-destructive impulse, I go for a run.” Rumaan Alam’s wellness diary includes bedtime reading, The Dharma at Big Sur, and Ali Smith. | Vanity Fair
- “The country cannot help those who it fails to see or hear or name.” Gabrielle Bellot on Breonna Taylor. | The Cut
- “It is getting better, in big and important ways. But beautiful, white, thin, symmetrical, straight, cis women still rule the realms of magic.” Rosamund Lannin on searching for body positivity in fantasy literature. | Tor
- Masatsugu Ono on “the in-between space of translation” and the style that develops when writers work across languages. | The Paris Review
- Booksellers are stocking John Bolton’s memoir, though many of them have caveats. | Publishers Weekly
- On Dodie Bellamy, the renegade writer who helped define the New Narrative literary movement in 1970s San Francisco. | The Nation
- Emily Dickinson’s first meeting with her longtime pen pal Thomas Wentworth Higginson turned into a conversation about cooking, self-expression, reading and more. | The Atlantic
- Rachel Vorona Cote on re-reading Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence 100 years after its publication, and how its pleasures are “inextricably capacitated by the invincible innocence of white privilege.” | Jezebel
- “Using faces of the past, my daughter and I become the architects of Black futures.” Sasha Bonét on collaging and Black imagination. | The Paris Review
- “We have had a huge financial boost.” Black bookstores are reporting a time of unprecedented demand—and some overly pushy customers. | The New York Times
- In 1972, a Nigerian graduate of Eton College was banned for 50 years after documenting his experiences with racism in a memoir. The school’s current headmaster has apologized. | The Independent
- For Bloomsday earlier this month, a linguist and literary scholar discussed isolation in the work of James Joyce and Wole Soyinka. | Brittle Paper
- Some institutions and beliefs seem to be changing after George Floyd’s death. Can the Western literary “canon wars” change too? | The American Scholar
Also on Lit Hub:
Amy Poeppel can’t believe readers are still getting upset over f*cking swearing • Shaun Bythell recounts his days in Scotland’s largest used bookstore • Ilhan Omar recalls her early days of getting out the vote • Kim Beil on the way we name photographic trends, from the Rembrandt Effect to #sourdough • 10 works of running-centric literary fiction to supplement your miles • Peniel Joseph on the death that galvanized Malcolm X against police brutality • Reckoning with the toll gymnastics takes on women’s lives • Emma Dabiri on the history of Black hair • Vivian Gornick on the forgotten first wife of Victorian novelist George Meredith • Marie Mutsuki Mockett wonders if there’s a better way for the left to talk about American Christianity • Lauren Sandler navigates the two maps of New York City, and finds the city’s block-to-block inequality is as stark as ever • In Flint, a teacher amplifies student voices on justice • On Orlando, and Virginia Woolf’s defiance of time • Mariana Enriquez on the impulse to write about the pandemic • 21 writers on their favorite children’s books • Rabih Alameddine recommends some gay books you might not have known were gay • Jill La Pointe on the art—and preservation—of Lushootseed storytelling • Bill de Blasio must stand up for writers • “climbing“: a poem by Lucille Clifton
Best of Book Marks:
Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, Shirley Hazzard’s The Transit of Venus, Robert Musil’s The Man Without Qualities, and more rapid-fire book recs from Deborah Shapiro • Sarah Neilson recommends 17 of the most anticipated books by LGBTQIA+ authors for the second half of 2020 • A month of literary listening: AudioFile’s best audiobooks of June • New titles from Ottessa Moshfegh, Roddy Doyle, Yu Miri, and Ragnar Jónasson all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week
New on CrimeReads:
Nick Kolakowski on the uneasy noirs of Stephen King • June’s best international crime fiction • Chris McGinley on the forgotten screenwriter behind a string of classic noirs • Shelley Blanton-Stroud on the women using noir to capture a new era’s zeitgeist • Nina Laurin’s favorite thrillers set in isolated places • Megan Miranda recommends five novels of insomnia, sleepwalking, and fear of slumber • Nicola Maye Goldberg on literature, feminist rage, and sociopathy • Kate McLaughlin celebrates a new trend of characters who are bent, but not broken • W.M. Akers looks back on tiny mysteries from the pages of the New York Times • Ottessa Moshfegh on dreams, nightmares, and a rediscovered novel