TODAY: In 1925, poet Maxin Kumin is born.
- From darkly adamant NO, to brightly urgent YES: 14 writers on whether or not to have kids. | Lit Hub
- We, for one, do not welcome our new billionaire space overlords: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and the commodification of the void. | Lit Hub
- Kristen Arnett doesn’t actually play a librarian on TV, but she totally could: On pop culture portrayals of the library, and how they’re getting. . . cooler? | Lit Hub
- When your childhood memories are slowly privatized: Caleb Johnson on the lost lakeshore of his youth. | Lit Hub
- Tara Isabella Burton looks at obsessive female friendships and the psychological thriller, from Du Maurier’s Rebecca to Highsmith’s Ripley novels. | CrimeReads
- “There’s intense pressure for clicks, retweets, ‘likes,’ to participate in a larger conversation (which seems to mutate by the hour), sapping energy necessary for the real work.” An interview with book critic Hamilton Cain. | Book Marks
- “This blue, indolent town. Its cats. Its pale sky. The empty sky of morning, drained and pure. Its deep, cloven streets. Its narrow courts, the faint, rotten odor within, orange peels lying in the corners.” Exploring James Salter’s Autun, the setting of A Sport and a Pastime. | The New York Times
- “By her third month into the job, her disdain for what she was doing was outsize.” On Renata Adler’s brief stint as the New York Times chief film critic. | Bookforum
- “If I live to be 80 (if humanity survives that long), I’ll be transparent and able to walk through my neighbors’ front doors, not just look through their windows.” Lauren Groff in conversation with Lucie Shelly. | The Paris Review
- “When you get prose as deep and rich and profoundly revealing of a character’s nature, you’re really spoiled as an actor.” Benedict Cumberbatch explains how he prepared to play Patrick Melrose. | Vanity Fair
- “I never did well in math, but I understand fractions better now.” Tommy Orange on what it means to be “Native enough.” | BuzzFeed Reader
- Watch the trailer for the HBO adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects. | Vulture
- Oprah Winfrey’s latest book club pick is The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row, a memoir by Anthony Ray Hinton, who was imprisoned for decades for a murder he didn’t commit. | Washington Post
Also on Literary Hub: Elizabeth Alexander on Lorna Simpson: “Black women’s heads of hair are galaxies unto themselves. . .” · Cooking to clear the mind: How Jena Blum makes space to write · New fiction from A.M. Homes’s new collection, Days of Awe
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