TODAY: In 1826, Louis Christophe François Hachette purchases Brédif bookshop on rue Pierre-Sarrazin, Paris. This becomes the first asset owned by Hachette publishing company.
- “I could begin to imagine what my future might hold for me.” Kamala Harris on the lessons of growing up in Berkeley’s Black and South Asian communities. | Lit Hub Memoir
- How loneliness can lead us down rabbit holes to radicalism: Fatima Bhutto on writing a novel of economic desperation and violence. | Lit Hub
- “An honest photograph can be turned into almost anything by a misleading caption.” Rebecca Solnit on Twitter conspiracies, QAnon, and the case of the two-faced mailboxes. | Lit Hub
- Can the fragile American union survive this election? Richard Kreitner considers the future of political fragmentation. | Lit Hub Politics
- “The wild creativity of a scientific mind interests me more than any other variety of creativity.” Filmmaker Michael Almereyda talks to Rivka Galchen about capturing the unknowable Nikola Tesla. | Lit Hub Film
- “I wanted her more than breath / I was so small & she could sing / anything alive, almost.” Poetry by Khadijah Queen from Anodyne. | Lit Hub Poetry
- WATCH: Writer, producer, and musician Phil Augusta Jackson gives us a sneak preview of his new EP, Redondo Space, discusses the best writing advice he’s received, and plays some Solange on the saxophone. | Lit Hub Music
- The Sellout, The Brothers Karamazov, Where the Red Fern Grows, and more rapid-fire book recs from Nishta J. Mehra. | Book Marks
- Lawrence Osborne on expats, fugitives, and the Bangkok apartment building that inspired a new novel. | CrimeReads
- Meet the anonymous lawyer valiantly (and sometimes rudely) correcting all the typos in The New York Times. | The Ringer
- “When I imagine the best-case scenario, I see a kid who has fought and lost, who’s gritting his teeth through a required task because we’ve promised him fruit snacks.” Emily Gould on virtual learning. | The Atlantic
- What will happen to the Urdu publishing industry after the pandemic? | Scroll
- HBO’s Lovecraft Country takes on the dark legacy of racism in the original work of H.P. Lovecraft. | Vox
- A former poet laureate of Nepal, Madhav Prasad Ghimire, has died at 102. | Yahoo
- “Women are no longer content to shut up.” Mieko Kawakami on feminist activism in Japan. | The Guardian
- Jakob Vala, senior designer for Tin House, describes each stage of designing Khadijah Queen’s poetry collection. | Spine Magazine
Also on Lit Hub: In defense of psychoanalysis and writing Freudian fiction • Breaking down the roiling, emotional middle of a James Baldwin narrative • Read an excerpt from Marieke Lucas Rijneveld’s novel The Discomfort of Evening, trans. by Michele Hutchinson.
