TODAY: In 1903, George Orwell is born.
- “I don’t think it’s a moral issue when people decide to be reclusive and anti-social. Like, why should anyone have to participate in this society?” Ottessa Moshfegh on isolation, self-awareness, and cancel culture. | Lit Hub
- “Why do I have to be the interpreter of this moment? Because I wrote a few books?” Mariana Enriquez on the impulse to write about the pandemic. | Lit Hub
- Suggestions for your kid’s TBR pile: 21 writers on their favorite children’s books. | Lit Hub
- Lisa Alther recommends her favorite tales of shipbound life, from Billy Budd to The Last Cruise. | Lit Hub
- ON THE VBC: On Fiction/Non/Fiction Live, Terrion Williamson discusses the narratives of the George Floyd protests • Episode 14 of The Antibody Reading Series, starring Zaina Arafat, Diksha Basu, and Annie Kim. | Lit Hub
- Lauren Groff on Kent Russell’s Florida odyssey, Sarah Gerard on Emily Temple’s meditation on meditation, Jennifer Szalai on John Bolton’s bloated White House memoir, and more of the Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks
- Rachel Vorona Cote on re-reading Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence 100 years after its publication, and how its pleasures are “inextricably capacitated by the invincible innocence of white privilege.” | Jezebel
- Nicole Dennis-Benn on the books, shows, and places that shaped her. | The Cut
- “Using faces of the past, my daughter and I become the architects of Black futures.” Sasha Bonét on collaging and Black imagination. | The Paris Review
- “We have had a huge financial boost.” Black bookstores are reporting a time of unprecedented demand—and some overly pushy customers. | The New York Times
- A new archive at the Digital Library of Georgia contains more than 3,000 digitized funeral programs from Black Americans who died between 1886 and 2019. | Atlas Obscura
- The retailer Waterstones apologized to book cover artists after some of its branches reopened with book covers displayed back-to-front so that customers could read blurbs. | The Guardian
- In 1972, a Nigerian graduate of Eton College was banned for 50 years after documenting his experiences with racism in a memoir. The school’s current headmaster has apologized. | The Independent
Also on Lit Hub: In Flint, a teacher amplifies student voices on justice • On Orlando, and Virginia Woolf’s defiance of time • Read a story from Oksana Zabuzhko’s collection Your Ad Could Go Here, trans. by Halyna Hryn.
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