TODAY: In 1937, English romance novelist Jacqueline Collins, author of 32 novels, all of which appeared on The New York Times bestsellers list and have sold over 500 million copies, is born.
- Introducing The Avid Reader, essential reading advice from our favorite writers. Up first, Helen Simpson on the pleasures of Chekhov’s story, “Oysters.” | Lit Hub
- For Fiction/Non/Fiction, Elizabeth McCracken, Tony Tulathimutte, Hadara Bar-Nadav, and Kathryn Nuernberger weigh in on MFA vs. pretty much everything. With Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan. | Lit Hub
- “He came from dykes and to dykes he shall return…” Mikaella Clements on the queerness of Ernest Hemingway. | Lit Hub
- Sarah Nicole Prickett on the “dry-eyed mourning”of Gary Indiana and his novel, Gone Tomorrow. | Lit Hub
- Michael Crichton is taller than some dinosaurs. And other surprises from this ranking of famous writers’ heights. | Lit Hub
- Five great books you may have missed in September(but can still read in October).| Lit Hub
- From Agatha Christie to Masako Togawa, the 15 most film-adapted women crime writers. | CrimeReads
- Dan Chiasson on Max Ritvo’s final poems, Katie Kitamura on Olivia Laing’s Acker experiment, Stormy Daniels’ Trojan horse, and more Book Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks
- “The novel matters because it punches little holes in the wall of indifference that surrounds us. Novels have to swim against the tide.” Elif Shafak on the importance and responsibility of the novelist in our “age of anger.” | New Statesman
- “If the narrator is flawed, it makes it easier to fool the reader because you’re not withholding anything.” Tana French on the art of the red herring. | Vulture
- “I thought Madame Bovary sounded like porn; everything French sounded like porn to me.” Alejandro Zambra on not reading Flaubert’s classic. | The Paris Review
- “You fool language by using the words of others.” The relationship between John Ashbery’s collages and his poetry. | Artsy
- Ever wish for the life and witty repartee of Oscar Wilde? Well you can’t have it, but soon you’ll be able to stay in the author’s London pied-à-terre, opening as a hotel in December. | Travel + Leisure
- “It was a place where she read to deepen her literary education and her communion with her mother, and a place where she was inducted into mysteries of sexuality.” Mary Shelley’s obsession with the cemetery feels fairly on-brand. | JSTOR
- An appreciation of the Paddington Bear books —particularly the pop-ups—on the 60th anniversary of A Bear Called Paddington. | Smithsonian
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