TODAY: In 1890, poet, playwright, and theatre actress Blanche Oelrichs, who used the nom de plume Michael Strange to publish her poetry, is born.
- Read Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s 2000 dissent in Bush v. Gore. (And let’s hope we don’t have to refer to its precedents any time soon.) | Lit Hub Politics
- Taunts and abuse: Deborah Tannen on what really happened at the Trump-Biden debate. | Lit Hub Politics
- What does it mean to be an American citizen? Ru Freeman on rights, responsibility, and love as critique. | Lit Hub Politics
- How a 27-year-old heiress helped shape the post-WWII world: on Kathleen Harriman’s Days at Yalta. | Lit Hub History
- On malaria, drought, and the personal consequences of greed: Zoë Dutka confronts a crisis in Santa Elena de Uairén, Venezuela. | Lit Hub Science
- “The appearance of portable computers, smartphones, and scrollable texts challenges assumptions about the make-up, effect, and purpose of books.” James Raven asks, for those in the back, what is a book? | Lit Hub
- “Kafka’s fables about creatures and hybrids trouble the boundaries between subject and object…” Gregory Ariail on the newly translated “lost” writings. | Lit Hub
- Not sure what to read next? We get it. Let the stars be your guide (or at least our astrology book club picks). | Lit Hub
- A flex: Author and New Yorker poetry editor Kevin Young was named the new director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. | The New York Times
- Patrick Bassett, the new CEO of Powell’s Books, says bookstores are adjusting to the fact that the pandemic is “the new reality.” | The Oregonian
- On the phrase “officer-involved shooting” and other euphemisms that obscure violence. | JSTOR Daily
- “How could I consign someone to the brutalities of incarceration when I’ve long advocated for the abolition of prisons?” Ayelet Waldman on calling 911 in America, and on what happens next. | The Atlantic
- How not to store your books: Michael Dirda on his “Smaug-like book hoard” and the limits of “Swedish death-cleaning.” | The Washington Post
- “It sounds silly: texting. It sounds flimsy. I’d prefer the systems being fixed in order that we not have to rely on our own individual abilities to come together to survive.” Lynn Steger Strong on the power of the group text for women during the pandemic. | TIME
- Claudia Rankine’s quick takes on Fleabag, Maxine Waters, tennis, and more. | New Statesman