TODAY: In 1919, F. Scott Fitzgerald gives the manuscript of This Side of Paradise to his friend Shane Leslie to deliver to Maxwell Perkins, editor at Charles Scribner’s Sons in New York.
- “My correspondence with loved ones, and particularly fellow artists, are what has kept me aloft in recent months in this era of devastating loss.” Lauren Markham on the daily magic of the US postal system. | Lit Hub
- “In nature, I am myself and feel the circumference of love. Perhaps, for me, nature is God.” Henri Cole in conversation with David Roderick. | Lit Hub
- “We couldn’t blame our wrong turns on whisky. I never once saw William Gay drunk, co-piloting or not.” Sonny Brewer remembers his friend William Gay, a master of the Southern Gothic. | Lit Hub
- It’s Friday, so here’s Bill Hayes writing about a completely normal evening in New York. (Or, a scene from the before times.) | Lit Hub
- “The ghosts frighten. But more importantly, they reveal.” Andrew Pyper on hauntings, memory, and how the White House became a house of horrors. | CrimeReads
- New titles from Elena Ferrante, Emma Cline, Yaa Gyasi, and Eula Biss all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week. | Book Marks
- “But the fantasy had become a reality for me, and I was determined not to waste the incredible good fortune that had come my way.” Janet Malcolm on failing to defend herself on the stand—and what she did with her second chance. | NYRB
- David Graeber, the influential anthropologist known for his anti-capitalist, anarchist activism and wide-ranging books on debt, bureaucracy, and jobs, has died at 59. | Heavy
- In praise of the slow-paced, meandering novel—the kind we need for 2020. | Electric Literature
- In case you need this today, here are all 349 “murmurs” in the Twilight saga, charted and ranked. | Slate
- Meet the parents who walked into a bookstore looking for books starring Black children to read with their son—and started their own independent pop up bookstore when they couldn’t find them. | Washington Post
- Jason Diamond shares his recipe for an ideal, end-of-summer read. | Inside Hook
- “I do think there are some wonderful books that have the power to change minds.” James Fugate discusses his decades of owning Los Angeles’ Eso Won Books. | Inc