The best of literary internet
- Round two of our Best Books to Read Challenge is underway with the 50 Greatest Summer Novels of All Time! Lit Hub
- Helen Bain follows Sylvia Plath’s footsteps from Paris to Wellesley. lit hub biography
- Dave Eggers talks to Jen Ciabattari about writing a novel that understands visual artists (as a visual artist). | Lit Hub in conversation
- How being celibate allowed Muriel Spark’s “intellectual monster” to run free. | lit hub criticism
- “The main beneficiary of the newspaper’s broad-mindedness is pushing that narrow-minded individual’s agenda while destroying the country’s most prestigious television news operation.” Michael Tomasky on Demon new York Times created. | new republic
- In a recently translated essay by Pankaj Mishra, Thomas Mann reflects on America’s “terrible moral decline” (From 1949, still relevant!). | equator
- we would love it if AI left serif fonts alone. | wired
- “The threat of loss, the inability to truly know or know another person, is not a problem; it’s part of what makes love exciting, meaningful, and even fun.” When Lauren Oyler met her AI boyfriend. | yale review
- Matthew Wills reveals History of Galileo forgeries. | JSTOR Daily
- What does Michel Abidor believe? Three new books by and about Paul Celan Tell us about his life and legacy. | Los Angeles Review of Books
- Riya Banerjee investigates “Wolffian” aspects of Chantal Akerman’s films. | public books
- Morgan Leigh Davis on What’s gone wrong with COVID novels. | current affairs
- 2024 What do Columbia students protest? There is a parallel with Madison Square Garden’s security theater: “What began as an extraordinary use of force became a normal part of student life.” | turncoat
- “‘I always thought he would live to a very old age. But he didn’t.'” Alan Jacobs on WH Auden and James Schuyler, in life and literature. | Hedgehog Review
- People really hated the film adaptation of this purple color When it first came out. Nadira Goffey finds out what’s happened since then. | slate
- “In the rush to computerization, American companies began a race to the bottom, paying workers low wages to ensure that their computers would bring a return on investment.” Considering human labor Behind the digital revolution. | baffler
- How about stories about a lighthouse keeper named Elias Thorne Chatbots escaped control. | 404 media
- eric becker watches Magnifica HumanitasPope Leo’s first encyclical“A work of taking a position in the debates that have fragmented Catholicism since the mid-20th century.” | Nation
- Lavinia Spalding tells Cherry Lucas Rowlands About editing Best Women’s Travel Writing series: “I think grief makes us more sensitive, and so when we travel everything we experience – all the unexpected beauty and tenderness that comes with travel – can be heightened.” | longreads
Also on Lit Hub:
Balancing brutal night shifts with writing poetry • The timeless appeal of Jane Austen sense and Sensibility • Rachel Carson’s poetic environmental vision • “Black Feminist Methods of Communicating with Waste” • How Katherine Mansfield Crafted Children’s Worlds • 5 Books to Better Understand the World Cup • This Week in Literary History, Lolita Premiere in New York • The Day FDR and Anton Cermak Made Baseball History • What’s in the Title? Team work. • Authors answer 7 questions about craft and life • Books about human and animal relationships • Sophia Montrone on getting reacquainted with her grandfather through fiction • Six books with (really) realistic sex • Parallels between how humans interact with each other and the natural world • “The Seneca Bear Hunter,” who killed the last eastern elk in America • Why art depicting dogs says more about people • When you can kill them So why kill your loved ones? • murmurPossibly the strangest football novel ever written • Countering anti-vaxxer arguments • What is the Multispecies Map? • 5 book reviews What you need to read this week • This week’s Independent Press top 40 bestsellers for fiction and nonfiction • We’d like to introduce you to Lost Kite Editions • Maris Kreizman’s best books of the year (so far) • Zinzi Clemons talks to Myriam Gurba about telling her story • Namwali Serpell and Vinson Cunningham on Toni Morrison Dear • Don’t know what to write? Get a dog. • Parmigiano Reggiano, a culinary icon • The life and times of 18th-century naturalist George Forster • If literacy is declining, why are bookshops booming? • Pairing poetry collections with K-pop • Did you know that the Mayflower Puritans came from a town called Scrubby? • How ancient writers regarded bees • Why sitting on the judge’s bench can inform craft • The best reviewed books What writers of the week can learn from sculpture
