TODAY: In 1940, the movie adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, adapted by Aldous Huxley, is released.
- There’s no such thing as a historical novel: how we look to the past to write about the present. | Literary Hub
- What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received? Lindy West, Jim Shepard, Katie Kitamura and more attempt to answer a difficult question. | Literary Hub
- Some writers you just don’t edit. Terry McDonell on learning from the untouchable Thomas McGuane. | Literary Hub
- A reading series in a cave: on taking storytelling to the great outdoors. | Literary Hub
- 5 reasons a writer should live in Vancouver. (Most of them are really just: it’s beautiful.) | Literary Hub
- Bronte! Why I wrote a musical about a legendary literary family. (Actual musical not called “Bronte!”) | Literary Hub
- The best Twilight Zone episode you never saw: Read Stephen King’s original 2011 review of Tom Perotta’s The Leftovers. | Book Marks
- “I shudder to imagine the enslaved black body in their creative hands.” Roxane Gay on the recently announced HBO series “Confederate,” to be helmed by the (white, male) creators of Game of Thrones. | The New York Times
- “By 2004, I still had no idea who’d killed her, and it seemed as if no one else did, either.” An excerpt from Carolyn Murnick’s memoir, The Hot One. | The Cut
- John Jeremiah Sullivan and Joel Finsel have been working to find and save copies of the 19th century black-owned newspaper the Wilmington Daily Record—with the help of students at two North Carolina middle schools. | Wilmington Star News
- “It would be gauche and inappropriate to compare Nguyen’s patience to that of a sleeper agent, but the parallel practically draws itself.” Josephine Livingstone profiles 2016 Pulitzer Prize winner Viet Thanh Nguyen. | The New Republic
- It is a truth universally acknowledged that we can’t stop mashing up “it is a truth universally acknowledged”: a linguist explains the enduring appeal of Jane Austen’s most famous first line. | NPR
- “The gin martini’s pleasures include the arguments over the way to make one.” An essay by Alexander Chee. | Tin House
- How Walter Benjamin’s fictions reveal a version of the critic “not always anxious or melancholic” but “often exuberant.” | The Hedgehog Review
Also on Lit Hub: Emmy Perez in conversation with Aracelis Girmany about border walls, poetry, and more · Dead bodies and diamond heists in Sierra Leone · Get an early look at The Grip of It, Jac Jemc’s new novel.
