TODAY: In 1894, Kate Chopin writes “The Story of an Hour,” which is published in the December 6 issue of Vogue as “The Dream of an Hour.”
- “The best of these provide more than a temporary shift, forever altering the way we see the world.” Myla Goldberg’s recommended reading on thinking like a visual artist. | Lit Hub
- Germaine Greer and the cusp of the feminist revolution: on the early days of the women’s liberation movement. | Lit Hub
- “Paul opened the idea of a new heaven and a new earth.” Jay Parini on the wild visionary at the heart of Christianity. | Lit Hub
- How can we stop the air we breathe from slowly poisoning us? Beth Gardiner on surviving the world we’ve made. | Lit Hub
- Read a poem from Diane Mehta’s collection Forest With Castanets. | Lit Hub
- “I’ve got a situation here.” The day the animals busted out of a small-town zoo. | Lit Hub
- Sally Rooney’s all-conquering Normal People, Isabella Hammad’s exquisite debut, and a new mystery from Alexander McCall Smith all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week. | Book Marks
- Nathan Ward on “Crimeways,” the greatest crime magazine that never was, and the many escapades of its fictional editors. | CrimeReads
- “LeFanu needed a monster; he could not imagine lesbian desire otherwise.” Carmen Maria Machado discusses her introduction to Sheridan LeFanu’s pre-Dracula vampire text Carmilla. It is definitely a normal discussion. Nothing strange happens at all. | Electric Literature
- “You’re certainly more profitable when you’re thirsty. And everyone online is thirsty”: Mark Doten interviews Patrick Nathan about Twitter, queer spaces in literature, and horror in the age of Trump. | Lambda Literary
- “As a writer, I find gardens essential to the creative process; as a physician, I take my patients to gardens whenever possible.” An excerpt from Oliver Sacks’s posthumous collection. | The New York Times
- Read a profile of Barry Lopez, the National Book Award-winning author who for decades has “sought to re-establish our ethical relationships with the land and the other creatures who dwell on it.” | America Magazine
- “The Mueller report is Game of Thrones for the real world—minus the dragons, but with all the political intrigue.” The irony of profiting from a report about possible government corruption. | The Atlantic
- “These individual stories that we tell about refugees or other exploited populations are being produced by a publishing industry that itself is the outcome of exploitation and inequality.” Read an interview with Viet Thanh Nguyen. | Asymptote
- In 2019, why do (some) people still look down on science fiction? | The Guardian
Also on Lit Hub: Kendra Allen looks back at her parents’ divorce • Experimenting with narrative at the Aspen Words Literary Prize • On Otherppl, T Kira Madden on writing her famous father without mentioning his name • Jennifer Acker talks lions, deserts, and food on the New Books Network • Read a story from Michael Carroll’s collection Stella Maris
