TODAY: In 1818, John Keats and Samuel Taylor Coleridge go for a walk on Hampstead Heath. In a letter to his brother George, Keats writes that they talked about “a thousand things… nightingales, poetry, poetical sensation, metaphysics..”
- “It no longer seems rational to assume that humanity… will behave rationally.” Nathaniel Rich on how the consensus on global warming was lost. | Lit Hub
- How to unsettle people by doing nothing: Jenny Odell on the small rebellion of inactivity. | Lit Hub
- “Sun sparkling off the river. Cats purring. Coffee brewing. Toasted bagel. Cream cheese. Lox. Home!” In praise of Ruth Reichl’s redemptive Twitter presence. | Lit Hub
- “We never fought in the kitchen. It’s hard to, when you’re standing side by side at the counter.” From the Bronx to Nigeria, how Kith/Kin’s Kwame Onwuachi became a chef. | Lit Hub
- Unraveling an unlikely family history: was Bram Presser Jewish grandfather handpicked by Hitler to curate the mysterious Museum of Extinct Races? | Lit Hub
- The first in Harmony Holiday’s new Disappearing Archive Series: LeRoi Jones on The Merv Griffin Show. | Lit Hub
- When a first-person narrator sneaks into your story: Jennifer duBois on the emergent I. | Lit Hub
- The mystery of Joy Division, the misery of Millennial living, and more of the Book Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks
- Leye Adenle talks Nigerian crime fiction, modern life in Lagos, and humor—our “favorite drug to numb the soul,” with CrimeReads’ Molly Odintz. | CrimeReads
- The 2019 Guggenheim fellows include Carmen Maria Machado, Catherine Lacey, Patricia Engel, and Shane McRae. | Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
- This year’s Met Gala theme is… Susan Sontag? | Vogue
- According to this stylistic analysis, the most Austenian of Jane Austen’s novels is Emma, and the most Austenian phrases are “am sure,” “the others,” and “her sister.” Typical Jane. | Medium
- The Libro de los Epítomes, which catalogues the 16th-century book collection of Hernando Colón—Christopher Columbus’s illegitimate son—was found in Copenhagen. The manuscript contains summaries of many works that no longer exist. | The Guardian
- “You fly over the desert, or race across it, but you don’t actually have to experience it. It’s a circumscribed adventure”: Tim Parks on why trains, planes, and all kinds of automobiles have long enthralled writers, from Dostoevsky to Woolf. | The New York Review of Books
- Sweet’N Low presents: literature! A brief history of product placement in books. | Vox
- The books on the Best Translated Book Awards longlists could have you eye-deep in great writing (and translating!) for quite some time. | The Millions
Also on Lit Hub: On Otherppl, Richard Chiem talks surviving his sad, relatable protagonist • 15 great cat poems • Lizzie Post got stoned every day to write about pot etiquette • Read from Isabella Hammad’s The Parisian
