TODAY: In 2007, former historian at the church where Edgar Allan Poe is buried, Sam Porpora, makes an unconfirmed claim to be the original Poe Toaster. The Poe Toaster was a mysterious figure who made a toast of cognac and left three red roses on Poe’s grave every January 19th, up until 2009.
- The most iconic short stories in the English language, as determined by that “weird and wiggly” hive-mind, the American cultural consciousness. | Lit Hub
- “A lot of people seem to barely tolerate the person they love. Is that normal?” Molly Wizenberg on what it means to form a couple. | Lit Hub Memoir
- Jill Filipovic on how Boomers—“the generation with the least stable marriages in American history”—changed family life forever. | Lit Hub History
- Josephine Livingstone on Raven Leilani, Alexandra Kleeman on Elisa Gabbert, Marcel Theroux on John Boyne, and more of the Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks
- “The civilized world is only a heartbeat away from primal and uncanny threats.” Jo Furniss on the folk horror revival. | CrimeReads
- Want to be happier? Try rereading your favorite books from childhood. | Lifehacker
- “My God, I thought, we’re not in this together. The social contract is breaking.” Laila Lalami on what the pandemic has shown us about America—and Americans. | LARB
- How Indigenous language preservation activists have reimagined (and expanded) their revitalization campaigns under quarantine. | Slate
- A new, rigorous literacy curriculum has inspired struggling students to read in one Tennessee district. | The Atlantic
- After Hudda Ibrahim’s niece asked why children’s books don’t feature kids like her, she wrote one, backed by a successful Kickstarter campaign. | Associated Press
- This isn’t a matter of exclusion or separatism—a book can be opened by anybody, and open any mind—but of fidelity to the truth of experience.” A.O. Scott on the work of Edward P. Jones. | The New York Times
- “If anything which challenges unfair structures and moves us closer to universal justice can be considered protest, then reading is one of its oldest forms.” On reading as protest. | Epiphany
- “I just decided that if she was going to get mentioned then I was going to be the one to tell her story, and to put the important role she played in my making in its proper context.” Natasha Trethewey on writing about her mother. | The New Yorker
- The neighbors of an upcoming bookstore in Virginia claim that the owner is taking books to sell from Little Free Libraries. | Washingtonian
- Lucy Scholes on Kay Dick’s lost dystopian masterpiece, They, “a surreptitious late-career aberration, whose genesis is unclear.” | The Paris Review
- From union erasure to the myth of love (of books) conquering all: Why organizing book industry workers is so hard. | Jacobin
- “These characters are smart enough to know they’re objects, fully cognizant of their ineffectuality.” Lynn Steger Strong on the passive female characters of contemporary fiction. | Los Angeles Times
- How Uighur poets are “bearing eloquent witness to the catastrophe in their homeland.” | NYRB
- “Racism makes it difficult to love yourself, and encourages people to make themselves into the image racism prefers.” Matthew Salesses on writing a novel that explores racism’s impact on identity. | Ploughshares
Also on Lit Hub:
40 Hamlets, ranked • Kirsten West Savali on motherhood and parenting with ancestral resilience • We should all read more literature in translation—these five July books are a great start • Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle on writing in her Cherokee homeland • Grand stories in grand hotels: A reading list • Jonathan C. Slaght spends a long, surreal night in Russia’s Far East, in search of the elusive fish owl • Michael Kleber-Diggs on listening to Big Boi, dancing through grief, and the complex flavors of Black joy • Jean Guerrero on how Stephen Miller abandoned the lessons of his Jewish ancestors • Lisa Selin Davis on the racist history of the American tomboy • A poem from Nate Marshall’s collection, Finna • Rima Rantisi on life in the shattered city of Beirut • What do paramilitaries in the streets of Portland signal for November? • Kurt Andersen on the corrosive politics of nostalgia • A spiritual manifesto for the Global International African Arts Movement • Jim Tankersley on the long hollowing out of the American middle class • Cree LeFavour writes an ode to the limitless read • Leah Hampton on dead trees, JD Vance, and the problem of invasive species • Tom Philpott looks at the future of farming in a world of water shortages • How the Corvette helped create Southern California cool • Kathleen Rooney on some of her favorite non-human narrators • On the intentional visual chaos of Beyoncé and Jay-Z in the Louvre • Five perspectives on race and Shakespeare in 2020 • Can the essay still surprise us?
Best of Book Marks:
17 independent booksellers rave about their favorite reads in the Art of the Hand-Sell • The Souls of Black Folk, Wuthering Heights, The Vegetarian, and more rapid-fire book recs from Darcey Steinke • Diane Cook recommends five books about wildernesses, from The Call of the Wild to Station Eleven • From the archives: a classic review of Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth • New titles from Margot Livesey, Diane Cook, Elisa Gabbert, and Kathleen Rooney all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week
New on CrimeReads: