The best of literary internet
- Maggie McKinley reflects on Joan Didion’s “future-oriented” nostalgia. | lit hub criticism
- “I would never blame them. But being around Americans is the last thing I can do when this country is bombing my country.” Iranian writer Shohreh Laisi on the war and her mother. | Lit Hub Memoirs
- Maris Kreizman recommends 40 great books you might have forgotten (that you should read instead of J.D. Vance’s memoir). | Lit Hub Reading Lists
- “How is queer history incorporated into the historical record?” Demetris Papadimitropoulos on Tennessee Williams, Daniel Siba’s Blue Roses, and the Ambiguity of Evidence. | Lit Hub History
- Maria Stepanova watches Russia’s new generation of political exilesTranslated by Sasha Dugdale. | equator
- Ariana Reines and Eileen Miles talk about Poetic kinship and life after death. | broadcast
- Some schools are hiring student content creators To make public education attractive. | Nation
- david denby search long history of failed adaptations odyssey (And wonder if Christopher Nolan can break this sequence). | the new Yorker
- Imogen West-Knights Entered the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament To check out our current crossword boom. | slate
- Craft Babble: Lincoln Mitchell on the multiplicity of fictional POVs. | counter craft
- “You may not have pie-in-the-sky optimism, but optimism rooted in fact and history and the politics of change is something we all desperately need, especially young people.” Dave Zirin and Andrew Holter discuss the legacy of Howard Zinn. | boston review
- Fewer Public Libraries Are Showing PrideFor reasons that are unfortunately (politically) obvious. | 404 media
- Should writers be read? Should cartoonists be critics? Hagai Palevski considers these discourses and more when investigating sethfemeraEssay and interview by cartoonist Seth. | comics journal
- “I have always believed that the verbal nature of language contributes to its solid, factual pronunciation. There are some things you write that you almost never say out loud.” aithana miller on Working to Preserve the Pennsylvania Dutch. | dial
- PSA: It’s always a good day break ties with amazon. | Halmel
- JJ Anselmi did a collection Oral history of protest against data centers. | new republic
- “He has cleverly escaped these traps, partly by ensuring that each of his books is radically different from the last.” Julian Lucas profiles Colson Whitehead. | the new Yorker
- Emily C. Hughes on Prognostic, roe vs wade, and evil motherhood. | turncoat
- “I think it kind of exemplifies what I try to do with my work, which is to take something completely ordinary and elevate it in a way that you might not have considered, so in that sense that story is a perfect example of what I think I do as a writer.” Suzanne Orlean talks to Brendan O’Meara. | longreads
Also on Lit Hub:
The Times When George Sand Got Accomplished • The Chicago Manual of Style Should Rethink Its Stance on Capitalization • How Barry Windsor-Smith Reinvented Marvel’s Wolverine • Building Tension When Your Characters Can’t Do Much • An American Morning in the Soviet Union After Communism Fell • It’s Good When animals move fast • Recovering from a creative slump • This week in literary history, Washington Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle” is published • The labor history and complex racial solidarity of mid-century Minneapolis • Queer lives in the Arab world • F. Scott Fitzgerald’s most overlooked story collection • Terria Smith recommends anti-colonial travel stories • The case for slowing down and paying attention to nature • Conspiracy theorist Carl Oglesby’s take on Yankees vs. Cowboys • The American life experience of older millennial women • Time travel stories don’t have to be cautionary tales • Archiving as a family duty • The first (and only) book heard by the Supreme Court The Sanctions Case • 40 Great Books You Haven’t Seen • TV writer and novelist Rashid Newson talks to Spiro Skantos • This week’s Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers for Fiction and Nonfiction • 5 book reviews you have to read this week • Men’s Fashion Trends in Early American History • Namwali Serpell and Kathy Park Hong discuss Toni Morrison jazz • This happened on the relief of finishing a poem • The long, strange linguistic history of the letter W • Serena Chopra’s TBR • Why the novel is not a machine • BIPOC-centered historical fiction • June’s best reviewed From Books.
