TODAY: In 1950, Ahdaf Soueif, Egyptian novelist and political and cultural commentator, is born.
- Jane Jacobs, Rachel Carson, and the momentous summer of 1962. | Lit Hub
- If it only takes seconds to hack an ATM… How long for a self-driving car? | Lit Hub
- J. Mae Barizo gets lost in Berlin: On the wordless writing of Mirtha Dermisache. | Lit Hub
- Writers and their mothers: how Louisa May Alcott’s mom encouraged her early writing. | Lit Hub
- Protesting gun violence, four-letter words, and A Wrinkle in Time: what the Lit Hub staff is up to this weekend. | Lit Hub
- The best reviewed books of the week, featuring Adulterers, Agatha Christie, Rebel Ladies, and more. | Book Marks
- From Agatha Christie to Tana French, 7 of mystery’s most menacing manor houses. | CrimeReads
- Facsimiles of two lost manuscripts by Charlotte Brontë that were found in a book belonging to her mother will be published by the Brontë Society, along with commentary by four Brontë specialists. | The Bookseller
- “I had to say to myself, ‘I haven’t written enough about blackness, yet it’s part of my consciousness and my lived experience.’” Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith talks the process behind her new book, Wade in the Water. | Vogue
- “When I’m looking for myself, I find myself in the pages of Baldwin.” Jacqueline Woodson profiles Lena Waithe. | Vanity Fair
- “The only time of year when I felt the richness of the world they described, the Iran of the ‘70s and before, was during New Year.” Porochista Khakpour on celebrating Nowruz. | Serious Eats
- “Reading Crime and Punishment in 2018, we are reminded of the need to take irrationality and willful self-destruction seriously.” On a new translation of the Dostoyevsky classic. | The Nation
- “Thus far, only one dealer in all classes of books has had the courage to locate his store up ‘in the air.’” Or: when Frank Lloyd Wright designed a bookstore. | The Paris Review
- “What counts as a moment?” Members of the Disabled and Deaf Uprising on literary inclusivity, AWP accessibility (and lack thereof), and the importance of telling their own stories. | VIDA
