TODAY: In 1958, Boris Pasternak rejects his Noble Prize, telegramming the committee: “Considering the meaning this award has been given in the society to which I belong, I must reject this undeserved prize which has been presented to me. Please do not receive my voluntary rejection with displeasure.”
- The best essay collections of the decade: in which we essay an impossible task. | Lit Hub Best of the Decade
- Shadowing a legend: Jon Krakauer on the incredible career of mountaineer Fred Beckey. | Lit Hub
- “That’s the terror and also the holiness of a desire: It doesn’t actually have to do with the good.” Andrea Long Chu on Valerie Solanas and modern trans identity. | Lit Hub Criticism
- Milkweed, hollyhock, and a little bit of color: lessons in gardening from Emily Dickinson. | Lit Hub
- “Every publication is a deliberate act, and that act makes us vulnerable to the passions of a century that forgives nothing.” Albert Camus on the responsibility of the artist. | Lit Hub
- At the intersection of politics and aesthetics: Mónica Ramón Ríos and Carlos Labbé on the protests in Chile. | Lit Hub Politics
- The Astro Poets present a field guide to Scorpios, the sneakily power-hungry, creative loners of the Zodiac. | Lit Hub
- Out with the Medieval, in the with Gothic: Ken Follett on architect Viollet-le-Duc’s restoration of Notre Dame after the French revolution. | Lit Hub History
- Horror can sometimes feel pretty noir. Zach Vasquez recommends 20 films that blur the line between real-world horrors and the stuff of nightmares. | CrimeReads
- Suicide Woods author Benjamin Percy recommends five tales of suspense and horror that influence his work, from Frankenstein to The Haunting of Hill House. | Book Marks
- “The Count of Monte Cristo is one of the most exciting novels ever written and on the other hand is one of the most badly written novels of all time and in any literature.” Umberto Eco on Dumas, Casablanca, and the pleasures of imperfection. | The Paris Review
- From Midsommar to upcoming novels, what’s behind our fascination with folk horror. | The Guardian
- A new generation of historians is unearthing stories of the women who helped build Hollywood. | The New Yorker
- “Kids have not been exposed to a writer who looks like he does, who sounds like he does, who has that deep honesty and connection with them like he does”: A profile of best-selling children’s book author Jason Reynolds. | The New York Times
- Elena Ferrante’s first novel in five years—The Lying Life of Adults—will be published in English on June 9, 2020. | The Bookseller
- The world of magazine publishing has changed. What does that mean for the future of one of the most prestigious publishers of all, Condé Nast? | Intelligencer
- “To understand the public library as a benevolent form of welfare would be to entirely miss the radical potential of the institution as a political project.” Searching for the future of public spaces at an all-night library party. | The Baffler
Also on Lit Hub: Here’s the cultural encyclopedia of mushrooms that we need right now • Read an excerpt from Marie NDiaye’s new novel Cheffe (trans. Jordan Stump).
