TODAY: In 1932, children’s author Katherine Paterson, whose novel Bridge to Terabithia ranks number 8 on the American Library Association list of most commonly challenged books in the United States between 1990–1999, is born.
- Ed Simon explores the long history of European vampire legends and what those chilling tales reveal about our own latent fears. | Lit Hub History
- “I am filled with the terror which is the beginning of love. They tell me space is endless and space curves. And I understand.” Nick Ripatrazone on that time Dylan Thomas got spooky. | Lit Hub Criticism
- Alan Hollinghurst’s Our Evenings, Al Pacino’s Sonny Boy, Louise Erdrich’s The Mighty Red, and André Aciman’s Roman Year all feature among October’s best reviewed books. | Book Marks
- Are you the asshole if you want you friend to stop bragging about how much YA they read? Kristen Arnett has the answer to this and other awkward literary questions. | Lit Hub Craft
- What does horror need? According to Tyler Malone, it’s humor: “Laughing villains act as tricksters and jesters who mock us by holding a mirror up to society.” | Lit Hub Humor
- Like Water for Chocolate, Interior Chinatown, and more pieces of literary film and television are coming to streaming services near you in November. | Lit Hub Film
- “Even those who are frightened by the idea of ghosts like hearing about them.” Helen Donahue tells the story of a haunting, a kidnapping, and escaping her own boogey man. | Lit Hub Memoir
- November brings new paperback editions from Roxane Gay, Tom Wolfe, and more! | Lit Hub Reading Lists
- “I want to know if men realise when they are insane.” Read “The Doll,” the (spooky) short story by Daphne du Maurier that was lost for more than 70 years. | Lit Hub Fiction
- “…student restraint stands in stark contrast to the barely controlled hysteria of administrators, university presidents, trustees, and now library administrators.” On protests and privilege at American universities. | Arrowsmith Press
- Where has Scott Hawkins been since The Library at Mount Char? Choire Sicha called to ask. | New York Magazine
- Revisiting Fire!!, the Harlem Renaissance literary magazine that was ahead of its time. | Hammer & Hope
- “The intangible mysteries of parenting and family life were nowhere present in the book; nor was the idea that the family or its constituent members are threads in a larger social fabric.” Anna Louise Sussman considers Emily Oster and the rise of the “optimization parent.” | The Nation
- Alexis Okeowo explores the continuing relevance of Binyavanga Wainaina’s writing about Africa. | The New Yorker
- Justin Taylor gets lost (and found) in the Bob Dylan archives. | Bookforum
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