TODAY: In 1816, Jane Austen responds to a letter from the Prince Regent suggesting she write a historic romance, saying, “I could not sit down to write a serious romance under any other motive than to save my life.”
-
Allegra Hyde considers the “slippery, maddening, even disastrous” task of ending a story. | Lit Hub Craft & Advice
-
How illustrated children’s books played a part in social evolution. | Lit Hub
-
And we think egg prices are bad now: Lizzie Stark recounts the 1848 Egg War of San Francisco, when miners paid—in today’s dollars—hundreds per dozen. | Lit Hub History
-
Jess Row on what fiction can teach us about surviving the slow apocalypse: “That deficit is our failure to imagine, and grapple with, solidarity.” | Lit Hub
-
Eleanor Catton’s Birnam Wood, Catherine Lacey’s Biography of X, and Matthew Desmond’s Poverty, by America all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Month. | Book Marks
-
Josh Weiss recommends 10 alternative history thrillers. | CrimeReads
-
Why we get “book hangovers.” | Reader’s Digest
-
Ibram X. Kendi considers the crisis of the intellectuals: “The traditional construct of the intellectual has produced and reinforced bigoted ideas of group hierarchy—the most anti-intellectual constructs existing.” | The Atlantic
-
Publishers are preparing for a showdown with Silicon Valley over ChatGPT and other AI tools. | The Wall Street Journal
-
Agatha Christie is getting a contemporary rewrite. | The Independent
-
The manuscript thief has been ordered to be deported (and to pay $88,000 in restitution to Penguin Random House). | The New York Times
-
Gabrielle Zevin’s best-selling novel Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow has sparked a debate about credit in fiction. | The Washington Post
-
Elizabeth Kolbert on the con artists of the animal kingdom. | The New Yorker
-
Rapid-fire book recs from Clint Smith. | ELLE
-
Forget Lord of the Flies: Yellowjackets is remaking a Greek myth. | JSTOR Daily
-
“The writer told the court he was suffering depression at the time of signing the deal and had drunk several glasses of wine.” A Dutch court has ruled that, despite his protests, Michel Houellebecq’s appearance in an arthouse porn was completely above board. | DutchNews
-
“My marriage was never the same after that poem.” Maggie Smith on how career success impacted her home life. | The Cut
-
New York State has been ordered to pay $5.5 million to Anthony J. Broadwater, who was wrongfully accused and imprisoned for the 1981 rape of writer Alice Sebold. | AP News
-
“When I went to summer camp, it was like, ‘How am I gonna get through eight weeks here and never touch my special place?’” A conversation with the one and only Judy Blume. | Variety
-
“Low energy conservative influencers, dressed in business casual outfits, awkwardly reading (and explaining) their own stories off PowerPoint…” When conservatives try to have a children’s story hour. | The Daily Dot
-
“I read Wuthering Heights twice and found it demented.” Real talk from Louise Kennedy. | The Guardian
Also on Lit Hub:
Read a 2004 interview with Octavia Butler about the creation of Kindred • Kelly Link gives you permission to write in the afternoon • Joshua Bennett reflects on the surreal experience of performing poetry at the White House • Revisiting Anne Carson’s (surprisingly funny) masterpiece, 25 years later • Read Ayad Akhtar’s keynote speech from this week’s Whiting Awards • Considering the Bible, the ultimate book of books • Jasmin Attia remembers Egypt through grape leaves • The role of Big Data in sorting humanity across history • Liam Callanan on starting over • How writing about animals can help us better understand human nature • Memories of a distant home in milo toast • Clancy Martin on the contradictions of living through suicidal moments • Why do we devalue the sense of smell? • Peek into the creation process for Carlo Rovelli’s newest book cover • “Some people pour themselves a glass of wine; others stare at chickens.” • On the life-threatening health impacts of social inequity