TODAY: In 1910, French author Colette begins to publish her novel The Vagabond in serial form.
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“To live with other people is to be responsible for protecting them from your moods. Or perhaps, to protect the delicate gift of your moods from them.” Seema Reza on the joy of being (completely) alone. | Lit Hub Memoir
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Hilary A. Hallett investigates the romance genre’s radical roots, from derided “sex novels” to Bridgerton. | Lit Hub Criticism
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“To many in the Western world, the fact that the mind was free but separate from the heavenly soul was unbearable.” How anxiety evolved through the Middle Ages and early modern Europe. | Lit Hub History
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Phil Klay’s advice for writing about war. | Lit Hub Craft
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Emma Straub’s This Time Tomorrow, Robert Samuels & Toluse Olorunnipa’s His Name Is George Floyd, and Jhumpa Lahiri’s Translating Myself and Others all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week. | Book Marks
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Tobias Carroll revisits Gary Indiana’s haunting true crime trilogy. | CrimeReads
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Buffalo’s poet laureate Jillian Hanesworth talks about trying to find words of comfort amid the community’s devastation. | Rochester Democrat & Chronicle
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“The Alito opinion purports to be based on America’s Constitution. But it relies on English jurisprudence from the 17th century, a time when a belief in witchcraft caused the death of many innocent people.” Margaret Atwood responds to the leaked Supreme Court opinion. | The Atlantic
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Lessons on book bans from an earlier culture war. | The Nation
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When Darcy met Darcy: Matthew Macfadyen and Colin Firth in conversation. | Vanity Fair
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Austyn Gaffney makes the case for re-queering the Fried Green Tomatoes franchise. | Oxford American
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“Nothing can ever be right again. Here’s a horse.” All possible plots by major authors (including Cormac McCarthy) explained. | The Fence
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Exploring the “burdened virtue” of racial passing. | Boston Review
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“Claiming that the classics are just the work of ‘straight cis Western white men’ doesn’t strike me as a progressive stance.” Lincoln Michel weighs in on the “classics” discourse. | Counter Craft
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Josh Lambert surveys 2021’s most compelling works of American Jewish literature. | Jewish Currents
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“One could even argue that ghazals aren’t poems at all, but a capricious assembly of couplets that could easily part ways.” Sarah Ghazal Ali on the poetic form for which she was named. | POETRY Magazine
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Molly Farrell discusses Benjamin Franklin’s role in a 1748 book that featured instructions for self-induced abortion. | NPR
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Lucy Webster asks whether disability representation in books has improved in recent years. | The Guardian
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Why doctors and therapists use comics with their patients. | The Economist
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In 1962, Helen Gurley Brown’s Sex and the Single Girl promised sexual liberation. Now, writes Megan Garber, it reads like an omen. | The Atlantic
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Maris Kreizman explores the history and future of the Library of Congress. | Smithsonian Magazine
Also on Lit Hub:
Emma Straub’s advice for what to wear to a book launch • Spending time in Joy Williams’s celestial waiting rooms • What we’ve lost (and gained) with virtual reading tours • Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey on finding creative freedom in The Office • Why is Italo Calvino so beloved outside Italy? • When Biggie Smalls and Puff Daddy made Ready to Die • Unearthing the history of pre-NBA African American basketball • Natalie Diaz on the Mojave language and where English fails us • How “My Old Kentucky Home” became ubiquitous • Rachel M. Harper on learning a love of libraries • The tale of an unlikely American odyssey • On the “gnostic ironies” of Nathaniel Mackey and Fanny Howe • Victoria Shorr on the art of the novella • Peter Serpico on connecting to his Korean heritage through food • TANAÏS on the politics of caste and feminine joy in Satyajit Ray’s Charulata • Finding the spirit of Ukrainian resistance in the poetry of Marjana Savka • How Greenwich Village bohemians found their way to Provincetown • On Willa Cather’s long-term relationship with Edith Lewis • The quick and dirty on foot fetishes • Putsata Reang on telling her own origin story as a refugee • Naheed Phiroze Patel on the significance of life-long projects • How growing up in the digital age affects young minds • When Sidney Poitier went to the Moscow Film Festival • On the role of stillness in the creative process • What the rise of Insta-poets means for culture • Founding the first English-language library in Gaza • Tracing the evolution of free speech on the internet • Using songs and sermons to structure a memoir about fighting for Black lives • Eimear Ryan in praise of women who compete on their own terms • David J. Dennis Jr. on growing up with a complicated man • Can national service stitch America back together? • How do we give names to nature? • On the many strange uses of the letter X • Why the novelist Ann Hood became an airline stewardess