TODAY: In 1889, Newspaper reporter Nellie Bly sets out from New York to beat the record of Jules Verne’s imaginary hero Phileas Fogg, who traveled around the world in 80 days. Bly (pen name for Elizabeth Cochrane) returned 72 days later to a tumultuous welcome in New York.
- Rebecca Solnit: Let this flood of women’s stories never cease. | Literary Hub
- Orhan Pamuk on the joy and complexity of photographing Istanbul. | Literary Hub
- What does it feel like to die in a tsunami? Talking to survivors of the 2011 Japanese earthquake. | Literary Hub
- Can you ever go back? On loving (or trying to) your favorite childhood books, decades later. | Literary Hub
- Aminatta Forna recalls the first time she ever saw ice (and the evil bear who tried to kidnap her). | Literary Hub
- Latin America’s answer to Karl Ove Knausgaard. | Literary Hub
- Salvation and ruin: Revisit three early reviews of J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace. | Book Marks
- “I really wish people would see fat people as humans. Our bodies are vulnerable, our bodies are strong; they matter just like other bodies.” A profile of Roxane Gay. | Harper’s Bazaar
- The New Yorker’s tech issue features Junot Díaz on Spider-Man, Sally Rooney on a wellness app, and more. | The New Yorker
- Kaitlyn Greenidge on Henriette Duterte, the first black woman undertaker who used coffins to smuggle escaped slaves along the Underground Railroad. | Damn Joan
- “Here was a celebration of people like me, of the poetry we put in our bodies, of the stories, people, and language slipping away from us.” On the poetry of Ray Gonzalez. | Poetry Foundation
- What do The Epic of Gilgamesh, The Diamond Sutra, and The Communist Manifesto have in common? They are among 10 books that changed the world. | Granta
- A look back at the best fiction of the year (and what to look forward to next year). | Kirkus Reviews, Barnes & Noble
- In the category of adaptations we totally need: Amazon has paid $250 billion for global streaming rights to a Lord of the Rings TV series. What, have all the other ideas already been taken? | Deadline
