TODAY: In 1878, Anna Sewell, English novelist and author of the 1877 novel Black Beauty, dies.
- In honor of the 400th anniversary of the Bard’s death, we went deep: One hell of a literary era: beyond Shakespeare: a reading list · Jillian Keenan on Hamlet, a bro who didn’t even like sex · In praise of remixing Shakespeare (and why the Bard would have approved of contemporary retellings) · Ilan Stavans offers a new version of English literature’s most famous scene, Hamlet in Spanglish · What was Shakespeare’s central philosophy? · Shakespeare and his stuff, understanding the artist through his things. | Literary Hub
- My father the song poet: Kao Kalia Yang comes to understand her machinist father as a literary force. | Literary Hub
- “I don’t consider my work experimental at all—at all.” An interview with Valeria Luiselli, from Beijing’s Bookworm Literary Festival. | The Lifted Brow
- On The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu and the eponymous bad-ass librarians, who have saved 350,000 medieval manuscripts from destruction by al-Qaida. | NPR
- On the excellent advice a touring Mark Twain received from his wife (be more serious). | Salon
- Getting to know Warsan Shire, Internet poetry sensation turned Beyoncé collaborator. | Good
- Like conceding that Hooters does, actually, have excellent wings: On reading John Updike for the first time as a woman. | Los Angeles Review of Books
- “Falling down the rabbit hole in an intelligent way is part of what you need to do as a fiction writer.” An interview with Alexander Chee. | JSTOR Daily
- In case you had any doubts: winning the Pulitzer does wonders for book sales. | TIME
- From Don Quixote to The Year of Reading Dangerously, a reading list of books about books. | The Guardian
Also on Literary Hub: Beyoncé’s favorite poet, Warsan Shire, is nobody’s little sister · Interview with a bookstore: In Martha’s Vineyard, Bunch of Grapes · Bird speak: from Jennifer Ackerman’s The Genius of Birds
