TODAY: In 1983, novelist John Fante dies.
- How an unexpected Christmas gift gave Harper Lee the time to write To Kill a Mockingbird. | Lit Hub
- From Tom Wolfe to Kristen Roupenian, a brief history of recent seven-figure book advances. | Lit Hub
- Legendary travel writer Paul Theroux on the best books for an itinerant reader. | Book Marks
- What is a hard-boiled crime novel anyway? Life-long champion of the genre Otto Penzler weighs in on a complex subgenre. | CrimeReads
- “West calls his struggle the right to be a ‘free thinker,’ and he is, indeed, championing a kind of freedom—a white freedom.” Ta-Nehisi Coates on Kanye West in the Age of Trump. | The Atlantic
- Read Guernica’s special issue on deserts, with work from Claire Vaye Watkins, Anna Bhadken, Cari Luna, and more. | Guernica
- N.K, Jemisin, Curtis Sittenfeld, and 9 other authors recommend bookstores worth traveling for. | Lonely Planet
- Economist Yanis Varoufakis writes a letter to his daughter about the dark arts of banking. | Lit Hub
- Keah Brown, Esmé Weijun Wang, and Jillian Weise on what it means to be a disabled writer. | Electric Literature
- Our littles lives are strange enough: On weird fiction and the stories of Robert Aickman and Rita Bullwinkel. | The New Republic
- Novelist Christie Watson on her time working in the neo-natal intensive care unit. | Lit Hub
- Barnes & Noble may have once been the villain, but now the big bookstore chain may be in need of saving too. | The Outline, The New York Times
- “I wouldn’t say that I am ever *floored* by my actions as I sometimes am with those of other people. . . I can’t imagine yelling ‘I’M WALKIN’ HERE’ in a serious manner.” An interview with Shy Watson. | Fanzine
Also on Literary Hub: Fairy tale desire: The things I learned from Snow White • 5 writers, 7 questions, no wrong answers: Rumaan Alam, Jake Tapper, and more • Read from Chuck Palahniuk’s new novel, Adjustment Day
