TODAY: In 1919, facing the approach of Bolshevik troops, the Nabokov family escapes Sevastopol for Athens on a Greek ship.
- “Unfortunate the land whose citizens pass the buck to a hero.” Rebecca Solnit on Robert Mueller, Greta Thunberg, and what we risk by relying on heroes. | Lit Hub
- It’s all Greek in her dreams: a reading list of modern Greece from our beloved Comma Queen, Mary Norris. | Lit Hub
- “A classic pattern: because you felt that you hadn’t lived your youth to the fullest, you spent your whole life trying to be young.” Édouard Louis on his father. | Lit Hub
- “The subtitle is the book’s middle name: it’s not what anyone calls the thing, but you’re stuck with it forever.” Mary Laura Philpott on the surprisingly tricky art of subtitling. | Lit Hub
- Why don’t more writers become public school teachers? Belle Boggs on a career in the classroom. | Lit Hub
- On Bryan Washington, rising star of literary Houston (and the rest of the country, too). | Lit Hub
- Poets are basically criminals: Nick Ripatrazone digs through old police blotters so you don’t have to. | Lit Hub
- Sorting through the records: Mark Bowden on true crime research in an era of boundless raw footage. | CrimeReads
- Shhh…Secrets of the Librarians: a new interview series begins with Kristen Arnett on Florida writers and taking care of your community. | Book Marks
- Phantoms author Christian Kiefer on five books about mothers who are also human beings, from Mrs. Bridge to Sing, Unburied, Sing. | Book Marks
- “They’ve survived car accidents and multiple strokes. They’ve had fifty-seven-year marriages and many, many grandchildren. And at least eleven are skilled tap dancers.” Alexandra Kleeman reports from the Ms. Senior America Pageant in Atlantic City. | The Believer
- Read a profile of Susan Choi, author of Trust Exercise, who “is willing to set fire to traditional narrative, to undermine her own characters, to stomp all over her own beautiful sentences.” | Vulture
- One of the rare first editions of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone sold for $100,000 at a Bonhams auction. | WTNH
- Susan Orlean will adapt her best-seller The Library Book for TV. | Variety
- Enjoy an abridged biography of Deborah Eisenberg (in comic form) by Liana Finck. | The Paris Review
- Meet Dr. Alan Gribben, the Mark Twain die-hard who has spent the last 45 years discovering and cataloging the author’s library collection. | The Guardian
- From James Frey to Penelope Ashe: a selection of the best literary hoaxes from the last 100 years. | The New York Times
Also on Lit Hub: Lori Gottlieb on the process of human change • A poem by Willie Perdomo from his collection The Crazy Bunch • Read from Crossing
