TODAY: In 1911, writer Hortense Calisher, the second female president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, is born.
- Margaret Atwood: if we lose a free press, we cease to be a democracy. | Lit Hub
- Politics, preventative care, and a giant talking cat! The 10 most popular Lit Hub stories of the year. | Lit Hub
- “The vigilance required of simply walking is so tiring.” A conversation between walkers and writers Aminatta Forna and Taiye Selasi. | Lit Hub
- “We were thinking about time and the rhyming of history.” Director Lars Jan on bringing Joan Didion’s The White Album to the stage. | Lit Hub
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg as feminist gladiator, Virginie Despentes as feminist punk, and more of the Book Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks
- From 3 Days of the Condor to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, 10 thrillers you forgot take place during Christmas. | CrimeReads
- The Getty Research Institute received a massive new collection on food practices throughout history. It includes hundreds of books with recipes, etiquette guides, rules for fasting and more. | Hyperallergic
- The best and worst time for the job: Why were so many journalists killed in 2018? | The New Republic
- English poet Simon Armitage received this year’s Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry. | The Guardian
- Iris Murdoch believed in the Loch Ness monster, and more excellent facts Kathryn Schultz learned from books this year. | The New Yorker
- Turns out, the internet isn’t killing physical books: how Instagram (or maybe just #bookstagram) is helping to save the indie bookstore. | Vox
- For all your holiday break baths and fireside snuggles, Alyssa Cole highlights the best romance novels of the year (other than her own). | BuzzFeed News
- Exciting news for young feminists everywhere: Rebecca Solnit is publishing her first children’s book, Cinderella Liberator. | San Francisco Chronicle
Also on Lit Hub: On A Christmas Carol and Dickens’ demons • Why do we hug each other, anyway? • Read from Luminous Traitor: The Just and Daring Life of Roger Casement
