TODAY: In 1746, Samuel Johnson signs a contract to compile A Dictionary of the English Language for a group of London booksellers at a literary breakfast.
- Is this the biggest book cover trend of the year? | Lit Hub
- Camille Perri on subverting genre and queering romantic comedy. | Lit Hub
- From analog to digital, Katie Williams on the technological milestones in life. | Lit Hub
- “The most famous unknown of the century!” On Djuna Barnes queer, modernist classic, Nightwood. | Lit Hub
- From Andrew Durbin to Nicole Dennis-Benn, Lambda Literary’s William Johnson recommends 7 contemporary LBGTQ classics. | Book Marks
- On the first World Cup without the “poet laureate of football,” the great Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano. | The Atlantic
- “It was only after they won the World Series in 1983. . . that I found the Birds as charismatic and appealing as I found the Coffee Drinkers of my childhood.” Álvaro Enrigue on his evolving relationship with baseball. | ESPN
- The world has always been theirs, and they now believe they own it: Hanif Kureishi writes in defense of “Penguin’s wise and brave decision to ‘reflect the diversity of British society.’” | The Guardian
- “Nothing in my life up to now had prepared me for this. I knew nothing about hearts, or infant hearts, or, for that matter, anything.” Keith Gessen on becoming a father. | The Cut
- Caleb Crain sets out to determine whether he “was Cassandra or Chicken Little” in his 2007 essay about the decline of reading in America. | The New Yorker
- In publishing, parties are business: Rumaan Alam provides “a look at the recently concluded party season.” | The New York Times
- Barack Obama shares what he’s been reading recently, from Why Liberalism Failed to “The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy” (“admittedly a slightly heavier list”). | Facebook
Also on Literary Hub: The state of inclusivity in UK publishing: In conversation with Sharmaine Lovegrove · Cocktails, chaos, and dancing: Morten Høi Jensen on Tom Kristensen’s Havoc · Read from Silas House’s new novel, Southernmost
