TODAY: In 1869, Rachel Davis Harris, American librarian and activist and the director and children’s librarian of the Louisville Free Public Library, Western Colored Branch (above) one of the first segregated libraries built in the southern United States, is born.
- Rebecca Solnit on skipping high school and California culture. | Lit Hub
- From New York to Copenhagen, the 12 most popular libraries in the world. | Lit Hub
- Lara Feigel reads Doris Lessing and considers the “free woman” during a summer of too many weddings. | Lit Hub
- On labor and loyalty, and how a father’s strike nearly broke a town in two. | Lit Hub
- From Jia Tolentino on The Pisces to Hanif Abdurraqib on Zora Neal Hurston’s posthumous Barracoon, 5 book reviews you should read this week. | Book Marks
- 10 psychological thrillers that explore the fears and ambivalences of motherhood. | CrimeReads
- “So I’m freaking out. I’m thinking, What do I do? How am I going to have an addiction and have a baby?” Jennifer Egan on the children—and the moms—of the American opioid epidemic. | New York Times Magazine
- “The Largesse of the Sea Maiden is its own perfect thing, and Lord preserve me, I think I love it every bit as much as I love Jesus’ Son.” J. Robert Lennon on Denis Johnson, his literary legacy, and his magical posthumous work. | The Nation
- Simon Winchester: how my father introduced me to precision engineering. | Lit Hub
- “What you give up in control, you gain in collaboration.” Stephanie Danler on the differences between writing a novel and its TV adaption. | Vulture
- The story of The Gay Cookbook, the first of its kind (and published years before Stonewall). | Atlas Obscura
- “Handbooks on motherhood go back almost as far as Western literature itself.” Mary Beard on the birth (sorry) of the maternity manual. | The Times Literary Supplement
- From the Canadian Arctic to mountains in Vietnam: 6 books for armchair travelers. | Lit Hub
- “Why would a thinking person—or really anyone sensitive to injustice or falsehood—decide to switch off?” On revolutionary art, retreating into private life, and the work of Joseph Brodsky. | The Point
- Palestinian writer Dareen Tatour has been convicted of “incitement to violence and support for a terror organization” for a poem she posted on Facebook in 2015 entitled “Resist, my people, resist them.” She faces up to eight years in prison. | Jewish Currents
Also on Lit Hub: Why do horror stories resonate so deeply right now? • Bay Area Book Festival in five acts. • Read from Rubik by Elizabeth Tan
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