TODAY: In 1985, Vietnamese poet Xuân Diệu dies.
- In memoriam: some of the writers, editors, and great literary minds we lost this year. | Lit Hub
- Yarden Katz: AI systems are as much a tool of whiteness as any other system of power. | Lit Hub Tech
- The Best Reviewed Graphic Literature and Literature in Translation of 2020. | Lit Hub, Book Marks
- “It’s a Saturday night in the time of coronavirus in Seoul.” Darkness before dawn: a springtime tale of reopening in South Korea. | Lit Hub Memoir
- Pirates, badgers, wizards, and more: five great holiday audiobooks for the young readers in your life. | Lit Hub
- “Stonehenge might once have been largely a wooden structure.” Wait, what? | Lit Hub History
- “He listened to his teachers, immersed himself in their landscapes as a naturalist, and became, without intending to, a great teacher himself.” Barry Lopez on the life of Richard K. Nelson. | Lit Hub Nature
- “When you’re writing a Christmas book, it cannot be too Christmassy. It’s like wearing every glittery thing you’ve got and then some.” On the art of writing Christmas novels 365 days a year. | The Guardian
- Ayana Mathis talks to Thessaly La Force about James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain. | T Magazine
- “What do you imagine when you hear the term “romance novel?” What kind of protagonist do you picture? Who do you expect will fall in love with them?” Alyssa Cole on the politics inherent in romance novels. | O
- On Steinbeck’s lesser-known works and the lessons they hold for getting through this winter. | The Baffler
- “I believe that if I can learn how to ring, then I can stand up to other terrifying things.” Nicolette Polek on the practice and ceremony of change ringing. | The Paris Review
- Survey results show that Italians are reading more during the pandemic, a sign that “Italians are returning to bookshops, the heart of Italian cultural vitality.” | Publishers Weekly