- “I wanted to understand how a fictional village in South America, imagined by a Colombian writer living in Mexico City, could so strongly recall my home in the American South.” On Gabriel García Márquez’s bus trip through the South. | The Paris Review
- On Surrealist Max Ernst’s collage novels, “black bibles of blasphemy and depravity.” | Hyperallergic
- Happy Monday! Here is a list of the worst workplaces in contemporary literature. | Electric Literature
- “Even though Judy Blume wasn’t standing at a giant feminist podium with a vagina on it, pumping her fist, she may have had one of the most profound feminist influences on my generation.” Amanda Palmer on her love song to Judy Blume. | Slate
- Despite a note reading “Pas de publication posthume” in his will, the fourth volume of Michel Foucault’s landmark History of Sexuality has been published in France, 34 years after his death. | The Guardian
- “Melodic and discordant all at the same time, women’s voices singing from the darkness, uncompromising; not soft, not strident, more like a chorus of ghosts. . .” Neil Gaiman on The Breeders. | The Breeders
- Not since the 19th century have so many individuals had so much power over the press: On the return of the “press baron model” and the dangerous influence billionaires wield in our current media landscape. | Columbia Journalism Review
- “What did it mean for a man who had succeeded in American society to be capable of committing—or even imagining—such violence?” Sarah Marshall on the meaning of Ted Bundy. | The Believer
- “Every time someone said, ‘Cut,’ we were crying with laughter.” An excerpt from Jonathan Abrams’s oral history of The Wire reveals the story behind a famously foul-mouthed scene. | Vulture
- “For years, I have wanted to see Russia with my own eyes, to meet some of the people who live inside of that entity, to find out what they think it means to be Russian.” Karl Ove Knausgaard’s road trip through Russia, from Turgenev’s estate to Lenin’s law school. | The New York TImes Magazine
- “It’s the easiest thing in the world to write that exchange of dialog in. Do you want this? How does this feel? I want you, I want this.” Six romance novelists on how to write (hot) consent. | Jezebel
- Lauren Cerand, Kima Jones, and Michael Taeckens on the art of indie book publicity. | Poets&Writers
- “The breakup as social experience isn’t kiss-and-tell so much as a desire not to be alone in facing a story that’s now ended.” Leslie Jamison visits Zagreb’s Museum of Broken Relationships. | VQR
- Maris Kreizman asked some of our greatest living crime novelists—from Megan Abbott to Attica Locke—to share the novels that thrill them the most. | GQ
- Adrienne Miller on what it was like to be the (young, female) literary editor of Esquire in the ‘90s. | Vogue
Rebecca Solnit on the #MeToo backlash and the perpetual epidemic of violence against women • A designer’s lament: when you have to kill the perfect book cover • For her birthday, some writing advice from Judy Blume • Why I’ll never stop reading “junk” fiction: Ben Dolnick on being shamed for his love of genre • Patrick Nathan on the morbidity of language • New Poetry by Indigenous Women, a series curated by Natalie Diaz • What HBO’s High Maintenance—a show about weed delivery—actually says about ethics in journalism • On the art of flash fiction • Happy Valentine’s Day: 30 of the worst literary couples in history; How to write the perfect kiss into your novel; Kafka was a really bad boyfriend, and we have the receipts; Is love just an invention of Medieval storytellers?; Once upon a time I was falling in love . . . On the literature of romantic abandonment • Dani Shapiro on the hard art of balancing a writing life with social media • From Jaipur to Iceland Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir considers the courage of the writer • Signed Arthur Miller: rare look at the correspondence of literary icon • Joyce Carol Oates on dystopia, boxing, and reading problematic classics • Rhiannon Navin: How my mother taught me to be a book fanatic (and how I’m going to pass it on to my kids) • 25 legendary writer feuds, ranked (featuring a whole lot of Hemingway)
On Book Marks:
To celebrate her 80th birthday, we look back at classic reviews of Judy Blume’s most iconic books • 5 Books Making News This Week: It’s a Battle of the Essayists as Zadie Smith and Martin Amis go head-to-head • This week in Secrets of the Book Critics: Alexis Burling on Tolstoy, The Golden Notebook, and Roxane Gay’s fierce criticism • When Valentine’s Day Goes Wrong: Joan Lindsay’s Picnic at Hanging Rock • Parul Sehgal on Terese Marie Mailhot’s “sledgehammer” memoir, Cat Marnell on Erica Garza’s chronicle of sex addiction, and three other reviews you need to read this week • A Trump-era satire, a Black Lives Matter memoir, and more all feature among our Best Reviewed Books of the Week
