TODAY: In 1909, Eudora Welty is born.
- Michelle Dean on the problem with “speaking for women” and the abstractions of contemporary feminism. | Lit Hub
- “It’s hard to imagine two more polar opposites than Trump and Comey.” Michiko Kakutani returns to the Times review desk for James Comey’s A Higher Loyalty. | The New York Times
- A look at Edward Gorey’s book covers for Kafka, Dickens, Conrad and more (and a peek inside his Massachusetts home, while we’re at it). | Lit Hub
- Five reasons why a writer should move to Tampa (for starters, it’s the lightning capital of America). | Lit Hub
- From Circe to selfies, the best-reviewed books of the week. | Book Marks
- “The library is where everything opened up. And the library is also where it all began to shut back down.” What happens when the library becomes a place of danger. | CrimeReads
- Australian activist Yassmin Abdel-Magied, scheduled to appear at this year’s PEN World Voices Festival, has been denied entry to the US. | The New York Times
- The complicated comforts of Marilynne Robinson: on surviving personal and political upheaval through the work of a single writer. | Lit Hub
- “I’d reduced my icon’s truths into affirmational pick-me-ups.” Dianca Potts on the sanitization of our black female literary heroes. | Shondaland
- I’ve been the arms reaching and the arms pulling back: Hanif Abdurraqib on love, loss, and staying alive. | Triangle House
- How Lisa Halliday’s debut novel Asymmetry quietly became a literary phenomenon—or at least “the song of the summer.” | The New Yorker
- “It’s been said you could see it as appropriate, but it is not in a very fitting state for him.” Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s remains have been discovered in a wine cellar (TGIF?). | The Guardian
- The Man Booker International Prize Shortlist has been announced. | Man Booker Prize
Also on Literary Hub: Happy birthday, Sam! What did Beckett really mean by fail better? · Off the clock: What the Lit Hub staff liked this week · Read from Elaine Castillo’s new novel, America is Not the Heart
