TODAY: In 1964, Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree is published.
- “It was at this point that Imaginary Alien A came in through my window.” Sayaka Murata, Earthling, on making friends with non-Earthlings. | Lit Hub Space
- “True knowledge of the mountains is only possible through the suffering of the body brought on through the relentless motion of the feet.” On the great Nan Shepherd, poet—and walker—of the Highlands. | Lit Hub Nature
- “His purpose was to empower readers, to wake them up, unshackle them, elevate them to their best selves.” On Robert D. Richardson’s rare genius for biography. | Lit Hub Biography
- “He lived off his mother and off donations to his little Bolshevik Party.” On young Lenin, who may or not have worn Che Guevara t-shirts growing up. | Lit Hub History
- “I found I was writing as much about leaving Pomona as Pomona itself.” Michael Torres on finding life as a poet in Minnesota, far from home. | Lit Hub
- The Book Marks Questionnaire: Karen Russell talks Geek Love, The Last Unicorn, and hating Atlas Shrugged. | Book Marks
- Alex Shepard presents his yearly rundown of who might win, who is unlikely to win, and who definitely will not win (hi, Haruki Murakami) the Nobel Prize in Literature. | The New Republic
- “As I watch, I can’t stop thinking about how much better a job the androids are doing than my husband and I and our own machines.” Lydia Kiesling on online kindergarten, escapism, and Ridley Scott’s Raised by Wolves. | The New Yorker
- What makes a book a “people’s history”? | Los Angeles Review of Books
- Newly minted “geniuses”: N. K. Jemisin, Tressie McMillan Cottom, Jacqueline Woodson, Cristinan Rivera Garza, Larissa FastHorse, and Fred Moten are among this year’s MacArthur fellows. | The Hub
- With film executives home and reading more during the pandemic, there’s been a surge in studios buying book rights. | Los Angeles Times
- A new podcast from literary critic and standup comedian Frank Skinner is a tour through some of his favorite poetry. | The Guardian
- Britain’s first major Black sports star, the boxer William Richmond, was a hit among 19th-century aristocratic and literary spectators. | BBC
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