TODAY: In 1897, Stephen Crane survives the sinking of The Commodore off the coast of Florida, like all good writers, later using the event in his short story “The Open Boat.”
- In the interest of starting the year off right: 13 books we’re looking forward to in January. | Lit Hub
- “I’m not sure what age is normal for a kid to worry that you’ve derailed your parents’ dreams.” Adam Nemett on growing up with an artist for a father. | Lit Hub
- What to read while recovering from top surgery: Davey Davis on the books that arrived at exactly the right moment. | Lit Hub
- “The experience of riding together and listening to each other was incredibly affirming.” The power of a reading series on a New York subway. | Lit Hub
- This week in Secrets of the Book Critics: Michael Schaub on Joan Didion, Victoria Patterson, and 90s sitcoms over prestige dramas. | Book Marks
- From Olga Tokarczuk’s Flights to Wayetu Moore’s She Would Be King, the vital stories of the Transnational Literature Series. | Book Marks
- Lyndsay Faye, our resident Sherlockian scholar, looks at the past year in Sherlockiana ahead of Holmes’ birthday this weekend. | CrimeReads
- “I feel like you can really get away with putting a lot of your opinions—if you wanted to—in a novel.” Read a profile of Sally Rooney. | The New Yorker
- The presumption of glamour, a complete lack of managing editors, and “Don De-lee-lo”: Sloane Crosley on Hollywood’s misconceptions about the publishing industry. | The New York Times
- Scribner is bracing for a flood of Gatsby fanfic when the book enters the public domain in two years. | Jezebel
- In the meantime, Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet, Virginia Woolf’s Jacob’s Room, and William Carlos Williams’ The Great American Novel are among the works that entered the public domain yesterday. | Hyperallergic
- Poetry recommendations from the new editor of the Yale Review: Meghan O’Rourke’s favorite collections of 2018. | Vulture
- “At the most basic level, belatedly reading these books constitutes a form of vindicated investment.” Geoff Dyer on the books he finally got around to reading in 2018. | The Guardian
Also on Lit Hub: “Palm”: a poem by Ann Lauterbach from her new collection, Spell • MLK’s radical alternative to Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty • Read from We Are Family
