TODAY: In 1987, James Baldwin dies.
- “Who said we ought to stay sane? How is it even decent to remain sane in this world?” Anna Badkhen grapples with the climate of evil at Auschwitz. | Lit Hub History
- “If you’re going to make up an entire people from scratch—or write about any culture not your own—you need to do it well.” Lizzy Saxe on colonial nostalgia in fantasy writing. | Lit Hub
- “Writing can take you over, and I’d gotten used to this book’s presence.” Aaron Gilbreath on letting go of a book after 20 years. | Lit Hub
- Cats have always been our overlords: John Gray goes deep on the philosophy of the feline. | Lit Hub
- Looking back at Obama in the early senate years: a photo-history by David Katz. | Lit Hub Photography
- How social medicine can help us understand pandemics: Paul Farmer on some lessons from ebola. | Lit Hub Health
- Pulitzer Prize-winner Jane Smiley recommends five Émile Zola novels about Paris. | Book Marks
- How did “the magical Middle Ages” come to be synonymous with fantasy literature? Maria Sachiko Cecire on Tolkien, Lewis, and the rise and fall of the Oxford school. | Aeon
- Is the world finally ready for William Gaddis’s The Recognitions? | Observer
- “No one in the history of the world has randomly stumbled onto as many kidnappings as Jack Reacher.” Michael Robbins on Lee Child’s ex-military drifter-hero. | Bookforum
- “Like everyday life, scientific research is steeped in metaphor—which presents a productive paradox.” Henry M. Cowles on the metaphors of neuroscience. | Los Angeles Review of Books
- How does the mood of a book influence our relationship to it? | Book Riot
- From awarding honors to fellowships, here’s what the Royal Society of Literature is doing to support writers of color. | The Guardian
