TODAY: In 1949, writer Jane Smiley is born. Photo: Elena Seibert
- Writers write. And also, they don’t? 25 famous writers on writer’s block. | Lit Hub
- Kristen Arnett: librarian and tech whisperer? From camcorders to flux capacitors, the librarian’s struggle with technology is never done. | Lit Hub
- “Update on Werewolves.” A new poem by Margaret Atwood, from the latest issue of Freeman’s. | Lit Hub
- Patrick deWitt on the surreal joy (and terror) of seeing your novel onscreen. | Lit Hub
- Jodi Picoult would really like Brett Kavanaugh to read her new novel. | Lit Hub
- This week in Secrets of the Book Critics: Martha Anne Toll on John A. Williams, Well-Read Black Girl, and Dust Bowl Fiction. | Book Marks
- The Great American Read: Heroes—classic reviews of America’s favorite heroic journeys, from Nineteen Eighty-Four to The Hunger Games. | Book Marks
- “When it comes to political thrillers, maybe women tend to imagine ourselves in dystopias, if we imagine ourselves at all.” Lisa Brackmann on the meaning of the political thriller in the age of #metoo. | CrimeReads
- “When an artist as introverted as Knausgaard looks at the wider world, what does he see?” A profile of Karl Ove Knausgaard, at the end of his Struggle. | The New Republic
- Lauren Groff, Rebecca Solnit, Ling Ma, and more: the finalists for the 2018 Kirkus Prize have been announced. | Kirkus Reviews
- “One day Presto and Zesto, good friends, took a walk and ended up in Limboland. They didn’t mean to go there, who would go there, but they had a lot on their minds.” Maria Popova on Maurice Sendak’s new posthumous children’s book. | The New York Times
- “I have to write as both a minority writer and a majority writer at the same time, which means to write about my minority experience as if it were a majority experience.” An interview with Viet Thanh Nguyen. | Public Books
- A first edition of Leaves of Grass and a signed, pirated copy of Mark Twain’s Sketches are among Robin Williams’ collection of rare books, up for auction in New York next week. | Fine Books & Collections
- “As a girl, I learned to fear my body. Not only its wants or needs, but its power.” An essay by Brit Bennett. | The Paris Review
- On the queer history (and future) of feminist bookstores. | Broadly
Also on Lit Hub: Nick McDonell on the casualties of American wars • Arthur Ashe: tennis legend, voice for civil rights • Read from Buddhism for Western Children
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