TODAY: In 1818, Frederick Douglass is born.
- Happy Valentine’s Day—a holiday you can blame on Geoffrey Chaucer and his poem about horny birds! | Lit Hub
- What can the artist do in dark times? On the life and legacy of Käthe Kollwitz. | Lit Hub History
- In renouncing the myths of old California, did Joan Didion deflect responsibility for her family’s relationship to the land? | Lit Hub
- The student movements that went toe-to-toe with Nike: On one of the many real costs of globalization. | Lit Hub Politics
- “Love is hairy, absurd, and dangerous.” Amy Bonnaffons recommends eight weird literary romances. | Lit Hub
- How the word “Anthropocene” is failing us. Bram Büscher and Robert Fletcher propose some alternatives. | Lit Hub Climate Change
- New titles from Jenny Offill, Joshua Hammer, and Daniel Kehlmann all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week. | Book Marks
- From Dept. of Speculation to Normal People, here are the books to give your person on Valentine’s Day (depending on what you’re trying to tell them). | Book Marks
- “I felt, at times, like I was being lectured by the reanimated corpse of an Ed Hardy T-shirt.” Revisiting the deeply flawed (but still kind of useful?) He’s Just Not That Into You in 2020. | VICE
- Jane Eyre has been translated 594 times into 57 languages—this project is studying what those translations show us about language and culture. | Poets & Writers
- Here’s why you should start your day with a poem (maybe from one of these 2020 collections?). | Quartz, NPR
- Meet the fastidious, knowledgeable booksellers behind personalized book recommendation services. | The Guardian
- In a new book on polarization in the U.S., Vox editor-at-large Ezra Klein says social media isn’t the main thing to blame. | WIRED
- In case information calms your anxiety: five books to help you understand viruses and how they spread. | Financial Times
- If you liked the beautiful cover of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ novel The Water Dancer, you’ll love this wide-ranging conversation between Coates and the cover artist, his friend Calida Rawles. | W Magazine
Also on Lit Hub: Chinelo Okparanta recalls the lingering power of a first crush • Lit Hub Recommends • Read a story from Peter Kispert’s debut collection I Know You Know Who I Am.
