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TODAY is Lottery Day from Shirley Jackson’s story “The Lottery,” first published in the 1948 June 26 issue of The New Yorker.
- “One remark speaks to the dilemma all writers must live with: eternal doubt, the inability to judge the worth of what one has created.” Paul Auster on the time he met Samuel Beckett. | Lit Hub
- Behold: the best book covers of June, featuring technicolor forests, surreal humor, and zero beaches. | Lit Hub
- An introduction to activism: Julianne Moore on the women fighting to stop gun violence, and Moms Demand Action’s founder Shannon Watts shares the books that taught her to organize. | Lit Hub
- “Everybody wanted Orwell’s ghost on their side.” Dorian Lynskey on how the message of a book can change radically over time, and why we should all reread 1984. | Lit Hub
- Advice from Montaigne: if you want to be wise, don’t read too much (do read this, though). | Lit Hub
- On the beauty of math: Haim Shapira examines the poetry of numbers. | Lit Hub
- Norman Mailer’s moon landing misgivings, Svetlana Alexievich’s unflinching oral histories, gay panic in America, and more of the reviews you need to read this week. | Book Marks
- Michael Gonzales on the history and heroes of black pulp, from Chester Himes, to Donald Goines, to Gary Phillips. | CrimeReads
- The best books to read at every age, from 1 to 100. | The Washington Post
- Stockholm’s International Library is relocating from its central location in the city to the outskirts, a move that has led more than 3,000 signatories to sign a petition in protest, including authors, publishers, and members of the Swedish Academy. | The Local Sweden
- Meet Kaoru Akagawa, the Japanese calligrapher who is preserving an ancient script once used by women (including the author of The Tale of Genji) called kana. | The Guardian
- Are these the 50 best memoirs of the past 50 years? Let the arguments begin. | The New York Times
- Take a look inside the Orlando-based exhibit curated by Tilda Swinton. | Hyperallergic
- “It’s women writing books having sexual parity and happiness. And that’s a threat to some not-great people.” A discussion of the harassment romance novelists face online. | Glamour
- “This is a repeat of the conversation I had last week, two days ago, tonight, tomorrow, three weeks from now. The movie replays every sixteen minutes.” Kristen Arnett on sex at Epcot. | Hazlitt
Also on Lit Hub: Interview with a bookstore: Bluestockings • Camille Paglia on Myra Breckinridge and the life of Gore Vidal • On The Maris Review, Lauren Mechling on trying to make it in media • On Fiction/Non/Fiction, Irin Carmon and Jay Wexler on Ruth Bader Ginsburg, SCOTUS, and justice • So Many Damn Books talk Patti Smith and top six 2019 books (so far) • Read from Alex DiFrancesco’s All City.
