TODAY: In 1970, Norwegian author Tarjei Vesaas dies.
- Remembering Stephen Hawking: Brandon Taylor, Gabrielle Bellot, and Veronica Scott Esposito on the life and a legacy of the astrophysicist cum rock star. | Lit Hub
- The 10 most famous bookstores in the world. | Lit Hub
- “We need you to be a zealot.” My life in Scientology. | Lit Hub
- What it’s like to travel with a guide dog: Stephen Kuusisto on becoming a sacred/profane wandering totem. | Lit Hub
- Ned Beauman asks: is conspiracy fiction is too dangerous in the era of fake news? | CrimeReads
- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on The Bachelor, Jordan Peterson the snake-oil salesman, and more: 4 reviews you should read this week. | Book Marks
- Uncomfortable comfort and calm masking mayhem: on the reissue of two of J. G. Ballard’s prophetic dystopias, Crash and Super-Cannes. | The New Republic
- “What does it mean for a romance to take the shape of a murder investigation?” On Dorothy B. Hughes’ In a Lonely Place, and how it was transformed by Nicholas Ray. | London Review of Books
- “Florida wasn’t strange to me at first. It didn’t start being strange, in fact, until I left it behind and heard people from other states make it a punchline.” Niina Pollari on The Florida Project and her own childhood as an immigrant in the Sunshine State. | Catapult
- Based on extensive interviews with writers, poets, artists, and activists, PEN America has released their report on social media censorship in China. | PEN America
- “The kind of love I experienced for my daughter after becoming a mother really was otherworldly. . . I wondered if I was becoming religious.” On the faith, family, and the fiction of Marilynne Robinson. | The American Scholar
- Here’s a first look at Lila and Elena as they will appear in HBO’s adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend. | HBO
- Roald Dahl, Fran Lebowitz, and more: A brief modern history of authors writing smut (and the erotic imprints who published them). | Please Kill Me
Also on Literary Hub: On a life-saving letter from Albert Einstein against American nativism · A father and son (Bruce and Jackson Holbert) on editing each other · A short story by Rania Mamoun from Banthology, an anthology of stories from “banned” nations.
