TODAY: In 1860, George Eliot’s novel The Mill on the Floss is published by John Blackwood in three volumes.
- Two serious ladies: Sloane Crosley and Megan Amram talk comedy, Twitter, and the rise of the personal essay. | Lit Hub
- Library Tales: Are you pregnant? Can I have some creamer? And other actual questionsasked of Kristen Arnett while sitting at the Reference Desk. | Lit Hub
- The center didn’t hold: Kevin Williamson and the myth of ideological diversity. | Lit Hub
- When the French Communist party tried to break up with Marguerite Duras(she was already seeing other people…). | Lit Hub
- How the advice column took over Americaand never looked back. | Lit Hub
- James Baldwin at the funeral of Martin Luther King Jr. “The atmosphere was black, with a tension indescribable—as though something, perhaps the heavens, perhaps the earth, might crack.” | Lit Hub
- “It’s disconcerting that so many people assume criticism is the fall-back option, rather than an important and valid activity in its own right.” Speaking with book critic Lucy Scholes. | Book Marks
- From shark killing sprees to brainwashed housewives, why New England offers the ideal backdrop for thrillers. | CrimeReads
- Roxane Gay is curating a pop-up magazine in which twenty-four writers—including Matthew Salesses, Randa Jarrar, Carmen Maria Machado, Terese Mailhot, and Gabrielle Bellot—will answer the question “what does it mean to live in an unruly body?” | Medium
- “Writing fiction when I was guaranteed to be paid by the word for nonfiction was an act of audacity.” Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Mary H.K. Choi, Adam Sternbergh, and Benjamin Percy discuss going from nonfiction to fiction writing (or vice versa). | Longreads
- Love The Leftovers but wish it were . . . just a little funnier? You may be in luck. HBO has ordered a pilot of a new adaptation of Tom Perrotta’s Mrs. Fletcher, starring Kathryn Hahn. | Deadline
- Libraries reflect the history of how we express knowledge: on library design, and the often contentious history of the librarian-architect dynamic. | Triple Canopy
- “Autofiction might be the logical end result when a fiction writer can’t stomach fiction.” Anelise Chen talks to Grafias about her first novel, editing, and the Asian diaspora. | LARB
- The Man Booker International prize has come under fire for changing nominee Wu Ming-Yi’s listed nationality from “Taiwan” to “Taiwain, China” after being pressured by Beijing. | The Guardian
- “Justina makes people pay attention, and there’s value in that.” A profile of YA author and influential Twitter commentator Justina Ireland. | Vulture
