TODAY: In 1984, Argentine novelist, short story writer, and essayist Julio Cortázar dies.
- From Spring Snow to Also Sprach Zarathustra: the books that mattered most to David Bowie, bibliophile. | Lit Hub
- Ten specialty bookstores that are definitely worth a visit (particularly if you like magic or the ocean or cars). | Lit Hub
- “To wander through the catacombs is to feel yourself inside of a mystery novel.” Beneath the streets of Paris, in search of the cataphiles. | Lit Hub
- “My gender nonconformity still often to me feels like an interruption, a distraction.” On the complexities of book tour travel as a non-binary author. | Lit Hub
- “I joke sometimes that every white person who reads me thinks they’re the only white person who reads me.” Leonard Pitts, Jr. on the challenges of writing for white people. | Lit Hub
- Five writers, seven questions, no wrong answers: Chloe Aridjis, Jen Beagin, and more take the Lit Hub Questionnaire. | Lit Hub
- The Atlas of Reds and Blues author Devi S. Laskar on five books about being “other” in America, from The Buddha in the Attic to Citizen: An American Lyric. | Book Marks
- Five sci-fi and fantasy books to brighten your February, from Marlon James’ Black Leopard, Red Wolf to Ann Leckie’s The Raven Tower. | Book Marks
- Hester Young re-reads five childhood classics to see which have stood the test of time, and which are better preserved in the space of memory. | CrimeReads
- The spoken word president: Jimmy Carter quietly won has third Grammy on Sunday for the audiobook recording of Faith: A Journey for All. | Los Angeles Times
- “Apologies to Barthes, but the author didn’t die, she became the text”: Why have so many “tragic” literary hoaxes been successful? | The Outline
- Linger, loaf, laze, lounge, lollygag, dawdle, amble, saunter, meander, putter, dillydally, mosey: Ross Gay on the pure delight of loitering. | The Paris Review
- Finally: Hulu is developing a series based on Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City, to be executive produced by Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese. | Variety
- “The average income for a romance writer has tripled in the digital age.” On the (booming) business of romance novels. | JSTOR
- Read a multimedia excerpt from Ilya Kaminsky’s new collection Deaf Republic. | The New Yorker
- On the amazing wrongness of the “fact” that “Eskimos have 50 words for snow.” | Popula
Also on Lit Hub: An excerpt from C.D. Wright’s final book, Casting Deep Shade • On the complicated choices of memoir writing • Read a story from Mandeliene Smith’s collection Rutting Season
