TODAY: In 1987, Arnold Lobel, author of the children’s book series Frog and Toad, dies.
- “For some of the 20th century’s so-called children’s literature gatekeepers, Harriet was a problem child.” On the one and only Harriet the Spy. | Lit Hub
- “The special education advisor counsels you: ‘You can’t save them,’ she says, “sometimes you just have to let them fall.” Thomas Maltman finds a little humility teaching in the Mojave. | Lit Hub Memoir
- So who gets to be a sympathetic character in The Undoing? Olivia Rutigliano on victimhood as a privilege of whiteness. | Lit Hub TV
- Courtside fireworks, Laker Girls, Marvin Gaye’s epic rendition of the national anthem… On the rise of the NBA game as spectacle. | Lit Hub Sports
- “Over a twenty-year period the number of friends in whom Americans confide has shrunk as much as 33 percent.” On the loneliness of men. | Lit Hub Health
- On David Fincher’s Mank: Sydney Stern, biographer of the Mankiewicz Brothers, weighs in. | Lit Hub Film
- “The simple act of walking down the street in a fat body called up a deep rage in a perfect stranger.” Aubrey Gordon on the pervasiveness of fatphobia. | Lit Hub Politics
- Jane Smiley’s Perestroika in Paris, Thomas Perry’s Eddie’s Boy, and Ijeoma Oluo’s Mediocre all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week. | Book Marks
- The meticulous noir of David Fincher: an appreciation from Zach Vasquez. | CrimeReads
- “Reading Ferrante reminds us that personhood is inherently fluid, blurred, and unstable, that the solidifying process of most fiction is a consoling myth.” Pamela Erens on the “secret engine” that powers Elena Ferrante’s work—and may be why men rarely read her. | VQR
- “He was chronicling not just a century but a past and future of a people, represented by his characters’ memories, griefs, hopes, thoughts and dreams.” Maya Philips on the playwright August Wilson’s continuing legacy. | T Magazine
- If you were wondering what Stacey Abrams’ (aka Selena Montgomery’s) books are really like, know that her “protagonists are equally as horny for justice and truth as they are for creamy skin and flawless breasts.” | Glamour
- “I didn’t want a bad guy in it.” Jane Smiley on writing a book aimed at the empathetic. | Los Angeles Times
- Laura van den Berg on the craft of exploring “the unsayable secrets, the unexamined truths, the incomprehensible realities.” | Los Angeles Review of Books
- From history to art, memoir, and more, Smithsonian scholars recommend their favorite books of 2020. | Smithsonian Magazine