TODAY: In 1851 Mary Shelley dies.
- “[M]etaphor can both illuminate and obfuscate, sometimes at the same time.” Sam Lipsyte talks to Annie DeWitt about cults, wellness, and cutting through the dumb noise. | Lit Hub
- In honor of the Oxford English Dictionary’s birthday, a collection of cinematic dictionary title cards. | Lit Hub
- “I have no age. Passion has no age. I am all intelligence and all love.” On the life and times of Nahui Olin, poet, artist, and sex symbol of Mexico’s avant-garde. | Lit Hub
- “It’s not as cut-and-dried as expressing empathy for someone with unpleasant beliefs.” On the challenges of fictionalizing extremists. | Lit Hub
- “Stop sniveling and go write!” Read a graphic story by Dzian Baban and Vojtech Masek in which a publisher tells a writer to be more like Kafka. | Lit Hub
- A dark satire of racism in America, an exploration of virtue and violence, and a Seoul-set fantastical crime novel all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week. | Book Marks
- J. Kingston Pierce on painter Robert McGinnis, the “Rembrandt of pop art,” and his iconic pulp fiction covers. | CrimeReads
- “I’m so burnt out.” How 10 women of color actually feel about working in the “very white, very privileged” publishing industry. | Bustle
- Books are not toasters, and other reasons why you shouldn’t be tagging authors in bad reviews of their work. | Slate
- Behrouz Boochani, a Kurdish-Iranian asylum seeker who has been detained on Manus Island for nearly six years, has just won Australia’s richest literary prize. He was not allowed to attend the ceremony. | The Guardian
- Emily Mortimer will executive produce a TV adaptation of Laura Sims’ debut novel Looker. | Deadline
- “By the middle of the book, Susanna is mostly dead.” Rivka Galchen on William Goldman’s “strange, sad, captivating” children’s book. | The New Yorker
- The Dylan Thomas literary prize longlist has been announced. Sally Rooney and Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah are among the 12 nominees. | BBC
- One of the creators of the Bougie London Literary Woman Twitter page explains why she and her friend started the account. | New Statesman
Also on Lit Hub: Tom Sweterlitsch talks to Rob Wolf on the New Books Network • Designing characters’ homes as a writing technique • Twelve books we’re looking forward to in February • Read from The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls
