TODAY: In 1892, Alfred Abraham Knopf, founder of the publishing house Alfred A. Knopf, is born.
- “I have again reached the end of waiting.” Claudia Rankine on privilege seen and unseen. | Lit Hub Politics
- From mid-century British philology to twin-laden psychodrama, here are 11 great books you probably haven’t read. | Lit Hub
- Did a revolution in Latin American publishing make One Hundred Years of Solitude the success it is today? | Lit Hub
- Gabrielle Bellot on Audre Lorde’s fire, Christian Lorentzen on the Gen X Midlife Crisis Novel, Ruth Franklin on sex and grief in Eimear McBride’s Strange Hotel, and more of the Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks
- 50 new crime novels, mysteries, and thrillers to get you through the end of the year. | CrimeReads
- Bob Woodward’s new book about Trump proves he knew exactly what he was doing when he downplayed the deadliness of COVID-19, even in February, which . . . sort of seems like something we should have heard about before now. | NPR
- “Why is Giovanna so grim tonight?” Ann Goldstein on the most difficult-to-translate Elena Ferrante lines. | Vulture
- How does Charlie Kaufman’s film adaptation of Iain Reid’s novel I’m Thinking of Ending Things veer from the original? It does so in a major way. | Slate
- On radical politics and Henry David Thoreau, who attempted “to extract himself from a society that he found deeply troubling.” | New York Review of Books
- Paul Stephens on minimalist literature, concrete poetry, and the “one-word poem” boom of the late 1960s. | The MIT Press Reader
- AJ Aronstein investigates the story of Elsie Conick, the first Black woman tennis player to appear on the cover of an American magazine. | Guernica
- “I don’t believe that you think what you do is worthless, my sister says. I don’t. I just mean financially worthless.” Eula Biss on teaching poetry and reading Faulkner. Oh, and money. | The Paris Review
- “Lofting really was a genius of children’s literature. But he was also a product of the British Empire.” On the legacy of Doctor Dolittle, who turns 100 this year, and his almost-forgotten author. | The New York Times
- Jane Austen was not fucking around about homeschooling, or why this fall is the perfect time to read Mansfield Park. | Avidly
- Pacing, rhythm, cohesion: Kristina Rizga interviews a veteran high school teacher about what it takes to teach the craft of writing well. | The Atlantic
- Break open your piggy banks, another literary dream house is for sale: the 16th-century home that inspired Emily Brontë’s vision of Wuthering Heights. | BBC
- After a demographics report showed that Penguin Random House’s staff is overwhelmingly white, US CEO Madeline McIntosh says the company is “determined” to make progress. | Publishers Weekly
- “There is a history behind all of our decisions–and we should make them with the full consciousness of what that history is.” Claudia Rankine on publishing Just Us into the current world. | TIME
- Some in France are urging President Emmanuel Macron to relocate the bodies of poets Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine to the Pantheon, a memorial site known as the resting place of French cultural luminaries. | France 24
Also on Lit Hub:
Five years after the publication All American Boys its authors, Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely, kind of wish it would go out of print • Aimee Nezhukumatathil in praise of the “Mexican Walking Fish,” the cutest creature on planet earth • Daniel Mendelsohn talks to John Freeman about Homer and the art of digression • On Albert Allson Whitman, radical Black poet of the Reconstruction • Matthew Salesses on living through grief, both collective and personal • Sue Miller on first literary loves • Poetry by Henri Cole • Kerri Arsenault and Elizabeth Rush on writing from the edgelands • The unexpected politics of book cover design • Are New Yorkers really as rude as everyone thinks they are? • Sulaiman Addonia on surrendering the language of home • Our idea of Wagner tells us more about ourselves than about him • Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle on what the US could learn from the Eastern Band Cherokee Indians response to crisis • What happens in a pandemic when your friendship superpower is cooking? • Sherrill Grace on writing a biography of Timothy Findley • Adam O. Davis finding phantoms and broken lines in his new poetry collection • Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi on the rich oral traditions the Ganda people • How deeply involved is Devin Nunes in the conspiracy to discredit Joe Biden? • Diane Cook imagines life post climate change • Ed Vulliamy at a B.B. King “show” in Indianola, Mississippi • Virginia Woolf once wondered if the lecture was nearing the end of its days; Mary Cappello takes up the very same question
Best of Book Marks:
New on CrimeReads:
Lady Antonia Fraser examines a classic mystery of the middle class • Miles Corwin on the long, strange history of the Black Dahlia murder, Los Angeles’ coldest case • David Heska Wanbli Weiden on the long history and continuing importance of crime fiction by Native authors • How neo-colonial violence and exploitation gave birth to America’s most notorious gang, from Stephen Dudley • Nick Kolakawski on the notorious, nuanced “villains” of classic film noir • Bradford Morrow goes in search of unknown books by renowned authors • Neil Nyren introduces us to the big-hearted world of Alexander McCall Smith’s No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series • Olivia Rutigliano has just found out that Eleanor Roosevelt’s son wrote 20 mysteries in which his mother solves mysteries • Nancy Jooyoun Kim, in conversation with Mimi Wong, on the mysteries of immigrant family life • Nell Patterson on five crime novels featuring deaf characters