TODAY: In 1857, Charles Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du mal is published.
- Haruki Murakami on the exact moment he knew he’d be a novelist and the birth of his kitchen table fiction. | Literary Hub
- Josh Cook on the highs and lows of being both a bookseller and a writer, including “the psychotic mix of euphoria and anxiety when someone picks up a copy of my book and walks around the store with it.” | Literary Hub
- On Scott Sherman’s impassioned defense and shocking look into the dysfunction of the New York Public Library. | NPR
- “If he could not ruin his own life, God had designed him in chains.” A short story by Rachel Kushner. | Electric Literature
- In which Cate Marvin vapes, compares marsupial pouches and published books, and reflects on the harshness of high school. | The Rumpus
- “Olga represents all my fears for my future and all the pain and suffering I’ve already endured.” Paula Bomer on reading Days of Abandonment after her father’s suicide. | Vol. 1 Brooklyn
- On the “landscapes of meaning and meaningful landscapes” in Elizabeth Bishop’s poetry. | Tin House
- With The Turner House, Angela Flournoy has written one of the “very finest books about one of America’s most dynamic, tortured, and resilient cities.” | The Millions
- “In Rio de Janeiro the average distance between humans is shorter.” Writing by Gonçalo M. Tavares. | Granta
- ROACH EGGS ROACH EGGS ROACH EGGS: an intimate reading of Basquiat’s poetry. | Hyperallergic
Also on Literary Hub: Eight writers on how to be a woman on Twitter · The young men of Dublin, in all their glory
