TODAY: In 1918, Mexican poet Guadalupe Teresa Amor Schmidtlein, who wrote as Pita Amor, is born.
- The ultimate summer 2018 books preview: in which Emily Temple reads 28 book lists and does some math. | Lit Hub
- Darnell L. Moore on the unbearable whiteness of being at college. | Lit Hub
- Anthony Burgess on Kubrick’s adaptation of A Clockwork Orange: “If [it] can corrupt us, why not Shakespeare or the Bible?” | Lit Hub
- Is this the year Norway’s greatest living writer becomes a household name in America? (Dag. Dag Solstad.) | Lit Hub
- “Being a critic has been much more about learning—from the authors I’m reading, conversations I have with other critics, and other readers’ observations—than knowing.” An interview with writer and critic Ismail Muhammad. | Book Marks
- From David Goodis to Lisa Lutz, go along for the ride with these 10 road trip mysteries. | CrimeReads
- Christine Smallwood on the legacy of John Updike’s Couples, “500 pages of people demonstrating again and again that they are incapable of turning down an invitation to a party at which they are guaranteed to have a bad time.” | Bookforum
- “The literary world does quite like the notion of genius, but it has no place for a Picasso.” Helen DeWitt on the unfinished and the unpublishable. | LARB
- Science confirms what you already knew: the psychological experience of owning print books is “significantly different” from that of of owning e-books—to the point that they should be considered completely different products. | Forbes
- “To be honest I was expecting it to sell about 500 copies and then I would quietly go back to my music.” A profile of French-Rwandan rapper turned novelist Gaël Faye, whose debut Small Country (named for one of his songs) has been translated into 35 language. | The New York Times
- “I mean, come on, you gotta get with the giant squid.” Deirdre Coyle interviews Melissa Broder about existential dissolution, sexy mythical creatures, and her new novel The Pisces. | Electric Literature
- Why Finland is so committed to building “radical libraries”—in both design and service to the community. | CNN Style
- “There was something appealing about the challenge of trying to be sincere and thoughtful and intellectually rigorous with these things that are written off as not so.” Lucas Mann on the decision to write about reality TV. | BOMB Magazine
- Writer and journalist Arkady Babchenko, who was reported assassinated yesterday in Kiev, showed up at a news conference alive. | Granta, BuzzFeed News, AP
Also on Literary Hub: Rejections all the way down: Aja Gabel recommends just rolling with the NO · West Virginia lit: Behold the Travelin’ Appalachians Revue · Read “The Dancing Bear” from Maxim Loskutoff’s debut collection
