TODAY: In 1800, the Library of Congress is established.
- “Only around half of Americans born after 1980 could hope to have earnings higher than their parents (down from ninety percent for the cohort born in 1940).” Joseph E. Stiglitz lays out the failures of neoliberal capitalism. | Lit Hub Politics
- Alicia D. Williams on how music and verse can spark literary passion. | Lit Hub Craft
- “Maybe the thirst for flight itself became a kind of madness, the kind of desire that makes risk beside the point.” A brief history of failed attempts at human flight. | Lit Hub History
- Hazel Hayes asks if writing her novel caused her break up: “Reading my words back today, I couldn’t help but laugh at my former self, waxing lyrical about the pitfalls of staying in something that’s long past its sell by date.” | Lit Hub Memoir
- On how Prohibition changed women’s relationships with alcohol and the hostess Langston Hughes called the Joy Goddess of Harlem. | Lit Hub History
- “Nothing in my past had taught me what love was. And no songs or movies had, either, especially the ones I liked best (because they had the best tunes), such as ‘Mary Hamilton’ or ‘The Foggy Foggy Dew.’” Read from Jane Smiley’s new novel, Lucky. | Lit Hub Fiction
- Laura Kipnis on the liberation and vulnerability of divorce memoirs: “You will lay yourself bare for our scrutiny, and we will take your side. But will we?” | The New Republic
- “How can we give in to despair with eleven million people’s lives in the balance?” Edwidge Danticat considers what it would mean to tell a new story of Haiti. | The New Yorker
- Pleasure, not pragmatism: Marian Bull recommends eight cookbooks worth reading cover to cover. | The Atlantic
- “The emotions, the meanings, the images and stories I was looking for were intimate ones.” A conversation with Francisco Goldman. | Public Books
- Book ban fights in Nevada could force queer youth to out themselves at the library. | Teen Vogue
- “Shakespeare toys with numerous European languages throughout his work, including Italian, French, Spanish, and Dutch. Often, these are spoken in thick accents, with comedic pronunciation.” Frank Bergon on the Bard’s unique use of language. | Los Angeles Review of Books
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