TODAY: In 1892, J.R.R. Tolkien is born.
• Whatever else it may hold, 2024 is going to be a great year for books. Here are 230 we’re particularly excited about. | Lit Hub
• “I am not crazy. I do not actually think Margaret Cavendish talked to me in my dreams.” Francesca Peacock on just how deep a biographer will go. | Lit Hub
• “In moments of chaos or violence, many of us become immobilized. But in writing fiction we’re in total control.” Emily Schultz on the importance of slanted truths in storytelling. | Lit Hub
• Horror, then healing: Kyle Dillon Hertz on the power of facing trauma in writing. | Lit Hub
• “I was born with the strange power to peer into the minds of those near me and see their recent moments.” Read from Tara Karr Roberts’s new novel Wild and Distant Seas. | Lit Hub
• Adrienne Raphel dives into the archives of The Paris Metro, “a full high-low smorgasbord, from in-depth interviews with city employees to poetry… and capsule reviews of Paris’s worst restaurants to coverage of pickup softball leagues.” | The Paris Review
• Jennifer Szalai considers the lessons of recent books about disinformation in the age of mistrust. | The New York Times
• “Can secondary memory, stories passed down through time, unreliable, malleable—can these stories be considered research?” Vanessa Chan makes the case for throwing out the historical fiction rulebook. | Esquire
• Today we learned that not only is there a Taylor Swift Little Golden Book, but it’s also the fastest seller in the series’ history. | Simplemost