TODAY: In 1997, Helene Hanff, author of 84, Charing Cross Road, dies.
- Gregory Pardlo on form, his father, and not writing a book about race. | Lit Hub
- Testing ourselves to death: why Barbara Ehrenreich is giving upon the endless pursuits of preventative medicine. | Lit Hub
- Gay. Muslim. Refugee. Aleksandar Hemon tells the story of Kemalemir Frashto, and trying to make a life in Trump’s America. | Lit Hub
- 10 literary diss tracks: writers can be meanwhen they write you into their books. | Lit Hub
- Surviving the ordinary: why we need memoirs of regular lives. | Lit Hub
- What the rest of America can learn from California’s turnaround (hint: demographics). | Lit Hub
- What the critics have said about Jean Rhys’s masterpiece Wide Sargasso Sea, from its first appearance in the 1960s to today. | Book Marks
- “Racial inequity in cookbooks has a large impact on the broader food community . . . It means the food world continues to not accurately reflect the actual world.” Julia Turshen on the need for diverse cookbooks. | Eater
- “It may sound silly to put it this way, but I do sometimes think about my job as an act of care for the reader.” An interview with New York Times book critic Parul Seghal. | Slate
- Between 1999 and 2014, the number of black-owned bookstores in the US shrunk by 83%; as of last year, that trend has finally reversed, with new stores like D.C.’s MahoganyBooks and Brooklyn’s Cafe Con Libros. | Publishers Weekly
- “I want to feel surrounded by them, to feel that someone left a hundred bouquets in my yard while I slept.” Alexander Chee on planting a rose garden. | The New Yorker
- A rare interview with the infamously reclusive Eve Babitz (who answered questions via e-mail). | Interview
- “Circe as a character is the embodiment of male anxiety about female power.” Why novelist Madeline Miller decided to retell the vilified goddess’s story. | The New York Times
- “Every day I’m out in the world, I’m trying to offset what I fear you’ll think of me.” The Incendiaries author R.O. Kwon on her signature black eyeshadow. | The Cut
