TODAY: In 1586, the English poet, critic, courtier and soldier Sir Philip Sidney is fatally wounded at the Battle of Zutphen.
- “Why are populations so willing to look the other way when survival of organized human life is literally at stake?” Noam Chomsky in conversation about the Green New Deal. | Lit Hub Climate Change
- “I’m concerned that I exist to improve the political capital of my neighbors. Is the purpose of my life the cultural enrichment of a white community?” Amaud Jamaul Johnson writes from Wisconsin on being Black in a battleground state. | Lit Hub Politics
- “The best leaders get us to care about each other, convince us that our choices matter on a grand scale.” Jon Sternfeld on writing history as it’s happening in the middle of a pandemic. | Lit Hub History
- “I wanted to give a voice to the discussions I wish I’d had with my own mum; to start some necessary conversations about how we live and how we die.” Annie Lyons on writing about the hardest subject of all. | Lit Hub Memoir
- Life, love, and Beowulf in the deep south’s most literary small town: Lawrence Wells on the day he met his true love in Oxford, Mississippi. | Lit Hub Memoir
- “The translator is a writer. The writer is a translator. How many times have I run up against these assertions?” Tim Parks on the writer-translator equation. | NYRB
- “I’ve lost the urge to put all my faith in a single hero.” Maisy Card on writing about Queen Nanny, a multifaceted legend of Jamaican history. | The Paris Review
- “Here’s a writer who is at her most lucid precisely when she’s articulating the highest insanities.” On the sublime madness and mystery of Susanna Clarke. | WIRED
- From online author readings to outdoor story walks, here’s how libraries have been responding to readers’ needs during the pandemic. | National Geographic
- Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Lavie Tidhar recommend new science fiction and fantasy by Spanish-speaking authors. | Washington Post
- From the 19th-century celebrity chef and writer Marie-Antoine Careme through modern chef-authors like Anthony Bourdain and David Chang, personal food writing has always been about more than what you have on your plate. | Shondaland
- Orlando Patterson’s newest book, like much of his life, has been concerned with answering the question: What ever came of decolonization’s promises? | The Nation
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