TODAY: In 1842, Honoré de Balzac tries to create buzz for his play Les Ressources de Quinola by circulating a rumor that tickets were sold out. The play opens to an empty theater.
- THESE TIMES: Italy’s answer to coronavirus is a classic published almost 200 years ago · Big-hearted strangers are turning Little Free Libraries into Little Free Pantries · Ina Garten and Samin Nosrat are here to help with your lockdown cooking. | Lit Hub
- An environmentally ethical argument for hating birds (even if—and because!—you think they’re pretty). | Lit Hub Nature
- “Coffee is the dock in the bay, the point of departure and return.” Dinah Lenney on the metaphorical power of a good cup of coffee. | Lit Hub Food
- The stories behind the (frankly adorable) names famous writers gave their pets, from Cigarette to Cliché. | Lit Hub
- Sometimes you need a book to just be… funny. Matthew Norman recommends some literary comic relief. | Lit Hub
- Honor Moore talks to Mackenzie Singh about memoir and her mother. | Lit Hub
- “We simply declared ourselves filmmakers.” Barry Sonnenfeld on making Blood Simple with the Coen Brothers. | Lit Hub Film
- Stuck at home? Travel the world with these far-flung mysteries. | CrimeReads
- Alexander Chee on Paul Lisicky’s Provincetown memoir, Robert McCrum on Shakespeare in a divided America, and more of the Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks
- “Yes, this is all temporary and doomed, but isn’t it great anyways?” A doctor reflects on the lessons of Philip Roth’s Nemesis—and the value of “the illogical practice of reading fiction”—in the time of COVID-19. | Vox Populi
- “As the global stock markets falter under the coronavirus’s effects, and, in particular, as the American Century seems to approach its decline, Ma’s novel is a bracing tonic.” What we can learn from Ling Ma’s Severance right now. | The Ringer
- In case you want to escape our dystopia with a little dystopia, here’s a post-pandemic short story from Maureen McHugh. | Boston Review
- What are authors comfort reading these days? Celeste Ng, Elizabeth Gilbert, Ann Patchett, and more share their picks. | The New York Times
- How did Hilary Mantel’s conclusion to the Cromwell saga, The Mirror and the Light, become “the most significant publishing event of 2020”? | New Statesman
- Look, it’s something not pandemic-related: Michael Turek’s work “feels like we are stepping behind closed doors with him” into the communities of Siberia. | The Paris Review
- Here’s an extremely detailed update on one person in isolation during the coronavirus epidemic: George R.R. Martin. | The Guardian
Also on Lit Hub: Italy’s answer to coronavirus is The Betrothed, a 200-year-old classic • In the academy, plagiarism is the sin above all sins—and that’s a problem • Read a story from Sam Pink’s collection The Ice Cream Man and Other Stories.
