TODAY: In 1874, Lucy Maud Montgomery, author of Anne of Green Gables, is born.
- “So it goes in 2020, my eighth year of holding the revolving-door position of ‘authorized biographer’ for Bette Ford.” Lives may end, but do biographies? | Lit Hub Biography
- “The dominant caste controlled all resources, controlled whether, when, and if a Black person would eat, sleep, reproduce, or live.” Isabel Wilkerson on one of America’s original sins. | Lit Hub History
- How exactly did Rilke’s young poet respond? Damion Searls translating the other side of a famous correspondence. | Lit Hub
- “It is widely assumed that medieval scholars thought the world was flat, but that is a myth largely invented in the 19th century.” Wait what? On the life of John of Sacrobosco. | Lit Hub History
- “I’m a nobody at home but I’m big in Minsk, and how fun is it to say that?” Doug Mack on the view of America from Belorussia. | Lit Hub
- “So many good men were killed . . . all for nothing.” Wojciech Jagielski on the ghosts of the Chechnyan War. | Lit Hub History
- A year of literary listening: AudioFile’s best nonfiction audiobooks of 2020. | Book Marks
- “In our homes, thanks to, or through the fault of, bookshops, we imitate the libraries we have visited from childhood and construct our own bookish topography.” Jorge Carrión on the libraries that formed him. | The Paris Review
- A mobile library in Sri Lanka has brought books to more than 1,500 children living in rural areas. | Associated Press
- “If I groan, he thinks it’s good; if I groan, it’s gonna work.” Hugh Hamrick on life with David Sedaris. | Vulture
- Janet Evanovich, Ann Patchett, Bryan Washington and others on which books make the best gifts. | Washington Post
