- “We know—with joy and relief—that we’re in the hands of an artist with vision.” Claire Messud on Paweł Pawlikowski’s Cold War. | NYRB
- “To be intrigued by more than plot and character, by the language of the writing itself, was the beginning of my slow awakening to the power of writing.” Lydia Davis on Jon dos Passos. | The Paris Review
- “This will be one of the most rewarding things in my life.” Gilbert King, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book Devil in the Grove, speaks about the pardon of the Groveland Four, which his book helped set in motion. | Tampa Bay Times
- “It was—and remains—as easy to buy 1984 and Animal Farm in Shenzhen or Shanghai as it is in London or Los Angeles.” On the complexity of censorship in China. | The Atlantic
- “The afterlife is an old room in the house of the human imagination, and the ancients loved to offer the tour.” How the idea of hell has shaped the way we think. | The New Yorker
- “Consumers hold a pernicious power, so this trend towards free content won’t reverse itself unless we want it to.” What’s behind the precipitous decline in writers’ incomes. | Electric Literature
- Chooseco, LLC, the children’s book publisher that owns the trademark to “Choose Your Own Adventure,” is suing Netflix for “infringement, dilution and unfair competition” with the film Black Mirror: Bandersnatch. | The Hollywood Reporter
- Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland, withdrew from the Emirates Festival of Literature amid calls for the UAE to free human rights activist Ahmed Mansoor. | The Bookseller
- “Book publishing has a fact-checking problem.” What the critiques of Jill Abramson’s forthcoming book tell us about a larger problem in the publishing industry. | Vox
- “The market is flush with psychopathic she-beasts and irredeemably miserable vipers.” Against the trend of the one-dimensional “villainous bitch” in novels. | Vulture
- “I think the contemporary world that has claimed him needs to read him more deeply.” Hilton Als on curating an exhibit of James Baldwin portraits. | The New Yorker
- On Józef Czapski’s Proust lectures in a Soviet prison camp. | The New York Times
- “Our faces were red and our eyes were red and our auras or spirits or vibes or whatever were reddest of all.” Read a new short story by Alice Sola Kim. | The Cut
- On that old font from the Nancy Drew book covers—and why you’re seeing it everywhere now. | Vox
- “People are going to respond to my work how they respond, and that’s fine. But I know I can handle the consequences of having my opinion.” Playboy profiles Roxane Gay. | Playboy
Also on Lit Hub:
Mary Oliver, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, has died at 83. Read Brandon Taylor on one of her most famous poems, “Wild Geese” • “What’s needed is magic.” (Also: talent, focus, and endurance.) Writing advice from Haruki Murakami • On finally being able to say “I’m a writer” and mean it • Lauren Groff and Rachel Kushner talk prisons, prairies, and power • Tessa Hadley on what it is to write about everyday life • “Adultery, spousal murder, infanticide, and testicles” and other things you might find in early children’s books • On the science fiction novelist who created a feminist language from scratch • Read an extract from Hannah Sullivan’s Three Poems, winner of this year’s T.S. Eliot Prize • Samantha Schweblin on inhabiting the strange, and being compared to Kafka • Chris Power on unconscious literary influences, and the time he unwittingly plagiarized Alice Munro • Reyna Grande on two border crossings, 30 years apart • Finding love, one literary event at a time • Tim Johnston on the problems of changing style, novel to novel • On rediscovering reading after grad school nearly destroyed it • Sam Lipsyte on writer’s block, his old man name, and the key to good writing • Seven ways of looking at John McPhee • Visiting a literary outpost at the end of Long Island: where Capote, Steinbeck, and more took refuge • A testament to the miraculous power of reading aloud • Where New York’s single literary girls lived: Amy Rowland recalls her time in a women’s-only boarding house • A brief and incomplete survey of Edgar Allan Poes in pop culture, from Ray Bradbury to Gilmore Girls • “I have seen worthy Indigenous perspective routinely gutted from the articles I write.” Jenni Monet on why she’s started posting the original versions of her reporting • Reniqua Allen on Black millennials in search of the New South • How do you save an endangered species in a warzone?
Best of Book Marks:
We launched a newsletter! Subscribe to the Book Marks Bulletin for reviews, news, pre-publication giveaways, and more! • “Reading it, we are up against the raw experience of nightmare”: the first American reviews of Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar • Inheritance author Dani Shapiro on five memoirs that take big risks, from John Wickersham’s The Suicide Index to Roxane Gay’s Hunger • This week in Secrets of the Book Critics: Letitia Montgomery-Rodgers on the literary canon, Canterbury Tales, and Kayleb Rae Candrilli • Anna Burns’ Milkman: interminable slog OR brilliant evocation of trauma and tyranny? • Leila Slimani and the boredom of bad girl lit, Tessa Hadley as a modern-day Virginia Woolf, and more Book Reviews You Need to Read This Week • A paternity mystery, a deadly sleeping sickness, and the rivalry that shaped rock n’ roll all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week
New on CrimeReads:
Neil Nyren introduces us to the life and work of crime-writing poet Nicholas Blake • All the crime movies we’re excited to see in 2019 • Christopher Yates remembers growing up with a psychopath next door • Keith Scribner recommends 8 modern classics of rural noir • Taylor Stevens writes about finding her way to thrillers after growing up in, and then leaving a cult • CrimeReads editors look at January’s best debut thrillers, mysteries, and crime novels • Take a crime tour of Napoli with Paul French • Edward Humes recounts how a 1991 forest fire revealed that almost everything we thought we knew about arson investigation was wrong • British crime writer and bookseller Joseph Knox on how he first fell in love with American Noir • Taylor Adams looks at the best villains in crime fiction • Ryan Steck rounds up the very best new action, political, legal, and espionage thrillers out this January • Matthew Quirk talks with Steph Cha about reporting, conspiracy theories, and thrillers • All the best new international crime fiction coming to U.S. readers this month • Lisa Levy looks at 9 psychological thrillers that explore the complex dynamics of mother-daughter
