TODAY: In 1711, Alexander Pope’s “An Essay on Criticism” is published anonymously.
- The canonization of Dylan Thomas: On the legacy of literary afterlives. | Literary Hub
- How Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s Kintu offers a look at what it means to be Ugandan now. | Literary Hub
- What is money, anyway? On Lenin, Kimye, and gold-plated toilets. | Literary Hub
- “The world is grotesque, horrifying and unjust; yet redemption, individual by individual, is possible.” A 1966 review of Bernard Malamud’s The Fixer. | Book Marks
- “He had worked for the wrong magazine. That was all.” A short story by Nell Zink. | Harper’s Magazine
- “The war you lived through is long gone, but its ricochets have become taxidermy, enclosed by your own familiar flesh.” A letter from Ocean Vuong to his mother. | The New Yorker
- Sheba Karim on belonging at a Tennessee book festival as a Muslim YA author. | Literary Hub
- Brain-damaged by love and exhaustion, I could not make sense of any other kind of book: Emily Gould on her postpartum addiction to parenting books. | Longreads
- “I ask myself/what is it doing here? I’ve come/to answer: what is any of us?” A poem by Nicole Sealey. | BuzzFeed Reader
- Dennis Lehane on the most important books in his life (he can quote The Great Gatsby endlessly). | Literary Hub
- “We drag our weary carcasses to a coffee shop to acquire the strong espresso drinks that are all that stand between us and total creative defeat.” Hari Kunzru describes his writing day. | The Guardian
- Maybe I’m just used to rawness: An interview with Gabrielle Bell. | Los Angeles Review of Books
- The fine art of cheating in baseball: Remembering Red Faber, one of the last great spitballers. | Literary Hub
- A rare, 800-word Harry Potter prequel was stolen in the U.K.; police have helpfully limited the pool of potential buyers to “true Harry Potter fans.” | NPR
And on Literary Hub: Crime and the city: Sleaze, transience, and edginess in Brighton · A report from One Story‘s 15th-anniversary Deb Ball · An excerpt from Jessie Chaffee’s novel, Florence in Ecstasy
