TODAY: In 1879, Arthur Conan Doyle first story, “The Mystery of Sasassa Valley,” is published in Chambers’s Journal.
- “It’s not the workshop’s job to tell you it’s worth the risk to be a writer.” What not to expect from your MFA. | Lit Hub
- Karl Ove Knausgaard’s feats of shame and openness: Kim Adrian on My Struggle‘s experimental vision. | Lit Hub
- Benjamin Markovits: how a good conversation is like a (good) game of tennis. | Lit Hub
- “And I need you more than want you / and I want you for all time.” Dylan Jones on “Wichita Lineman” and one of the greatest musical couplets ever written. | Lit Hub
- Olga Zilberbourg on the subtle subversion of Soviet propaganda in Aleksandr Volkov’s adaptation of The Wizard of Oz. | Lit Hub
- The Hay Festival asked 14 of its featured writers to choose one book that gives them hope in these ever darker times. | Lit Hub
- On Charles S. Wright, the writer who rejected the Black literary bourgeoisie. | Lit Hub
- Read “The Greatest Liar in the World,” a newly translated story by Etgar Keret, translated by Jessica Cohen. | Lit Hub
- Salman Rushdie’s Don Quixote-inspired new novel, a terrifying contagion thriller from David Koepp, and an investigation into America’s opioid epidemic all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week. | Book Marks
- “There’s nothing so contagious as covetousness.” Jamie Mason on the strange world of art theft. | CrimeReads
- “What did it mean, the 31-year-old Baldwin telling a story he wanted to tell that wasn’t the kind of story he was supposed to tell?” Hilton Als reconsiders Giovanni’s Room (alongside some very sexy photographs). | T Magazine
- “I told my daughter about the ghosts, because I wanted to be honest with her. Ghosts aren’t real, but also they are?” Read a new piece of flash fiction by Rivka Galchen. | The New Yorker
- The Academy of American Poets has awarded Rita Dove a $100,000 prize for lifetime achievement. | The Washington Post
- Next up on James Patterson Gives Back: the thriller writer is awarding 4,500 teachers grants for classroom libraries. Four-thousand educators will receive $250. The other 500 will get $500. | ABC News
- Can the film adaptation of Donna Tartt’s divisive The Goldfinch solve a book in which “the density of detail is such that the sentences become verbless lists”? | The Guardian
- A coalition has formed to locate and restore three missing Sherlock Holmes films from the silent era. It includes the UCLA Film & TV archive, America’s largest Sherlock society, and Robert Downey, Jr. himself. | Los Angeles Times
- Just like the rest of us, Helen Phillips loves a jumpsuit. | The Strategist
Also on Lit Hub: The editor of “Modern Love” on the books that taught him about love • Announcing the winner of the
Restless Books 2019 New Immigrant Writing Prize, Rajiv Mohabir. Read an excerpt from his award-winning memoir, Antiman.
