- Because not everyone has extra time during quarantine, here are the 50 best contemporary novels under 200 pages. | Lit Hub
- “Ongoing environmental devastation has brought about renewed interest in the fungal world, and radical mycological possibilities abound.” Merlin Sheldrake talks to Robert Macfarlane about mushrooms. | Lit Hub Science
- “What occurs to me, as I sit down to write, is that this is the time to stand up for language.” Lydia Millet on the necessity of defending the truth against propaganda. | Lit Hub Politics
- Laura Miller on Curtis Sittenfeld’s alternate Hillary, Jo Livingstone on the life and legacy of Odetta, and more of the Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks
- “We find ourselves in a liminal zone of heightened temperatures, tempers, and lusts.” Elisabeth Thomas gives us eight novels for the eerie days of summer. | CrimeReads
- “Our culture is drowning in explicitness—thanks to the internet. And yet we suffer from a dearth of representations of embodiedness, by which I mean bodies imbued with consciousness.” Garth Greenwell on (good) writing about sex. | The Guardian
- Pulitzer Prize administrator Dana Canedy discusses un-sensationalizing diversity. | Vogue
- On Joseph Brodsky’s writing in exile, which “took his twin themes of travel and time and fused them: the past is a place to which you cannot return; the future is a place of infinite emptiness.” | New York Review of Books
- In the 1920s, the NYC-based “Algonquin Round Table” group of writers set the bar high for cliquey literary viciousness. | Biography
- Stéphane Bourgoin, who sold millions of books claiming to be an expert on serial killers, has come under fire for fabricating details of his life. | The Guardian
- “Saunders’s characters are beaten down by mind-numbing entertainment, uncaring bosses and broken healthcare systems, yet they still care about each other.” What George Saunders got right about 2020. | Inside Hook
- What does the Imperial War Museum’s Wartime Classics series, which features novels by authors who experienced WWII firsthand, say about representations of global conflict? | New Statesman
- How is “herd immunity” linked to the violence of social Darwinism? Take in Judith Butler’s lessons on nonviolence. | The Nation
- A case of “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” as “the dream-poem of right now.” | The Atlantic
- “The kids who need queer books still need them. They probably need them actually more than they did before.” Nicole Dennis-Benn, Garth Greenwell, Naoise Dolan, and Akwaeke Emezi in conversation. | EW
- In the work of Mary McCarthy, Margaret Foster, and other English and American writers, contraceptives have been used as symbols of class status, emotional and sexual development, and more. | The MIT Press Reader
- Readers imagined how authors like Hilary Mantel, Sally Rooney, Raymond Chandler and others might write themselves into their own best-known works. | The Spectator
- “From behind the counter, I learned that a supply chain isn’t an abstract concept; a real person forged each link.” Min Jin Lee on the labor of essential workers. | The New York Times
- “I resist the notion that literature should have to teach us anything, that it must necessarily be of use.” The case against seeking comfort or consolation in books during the pandemic. | Los Angeles Times
- African authors, frequently published by French presses, are leading a movement to keep their rights with African publishers. | The Guardian
Also on Lit Hub:
Lydia Millet talks to Kristen Iversen about end times, smug liberals, and good teens • How will restaurants reinvent themselves post-lockdown? • On the unlikely optimism of Viktor Frankl • Amanda Craig on why children’s books make good companions in a crisis • Wayne Koestenbaum considers incense, Irish Spring, and a few other smells • Part two of Maya Alexandri’s diary of an EMT on the front lines of a pandemic • Esther Kim talks to Immanuel Kim, translator of Friend, the first state-approved North Korean novel in English • Samantha Harvey on grappling with insomnia and reckoning with the past • “How many drawings will there be? God knows.” How Edward Carey is passing the time • Reckoning with the career of Isaac Asimov, sci-fi giant and serial sexual harasser • Joseph Brodsky on glimpsing the jazz, jeans, and movie stars of America • Maria Reva recommends surreal books for surreal times • How elephant matriarchs gain power as they age • Round eight of our personalized quarantine book recommendations • David Kamp on the radical creators of Sesame Street • David Farrier on the coronavirus and the limits of our metaphors for illness • Why do some writers burn their work? Alex George investigates • Richard Lopez on the potency of single-syllable slurs
Best of Book Marks:
James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room, Maggie Nelson’s Bluets, and more rapid-fire book recs from Quotients author Tracy O’Neill • To celebrate the 95th publication anniversary of Mrs. Dalloway, here are the first reviews of every Virginia Woolf novel • Pale Fire, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, A Feather on the Breath of God, and more rapid-fire book recs from Susan Choi • And Tango Makes Three, The Yellow House, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, and more rapid-fire book recs from 2020 Dylan Thomas Prize-winner Bryan Washington • Lydia Millet’s A Children’s Bible, Richard Ford’s Sorry For Your Trouble, and Samantha Harvey’s The Shapeless Unease all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week
New on CrimeReads:
Olivia Rutigliano on the 45 best sidekicks in detective fiction, ranked • Lisa Levy recommends five psychological thrillers out this May • Mary Keliikoa celebrates the hardest working moms in mystery fiction • S.L. Huang asks, what makes a book more thriller than sci-fi? • Francine Matthews invites you to enjoy these cozy, salt-streaked mysteries from New England’s cape and islands • Author and ER physician Daniel Kalla reflects on two converging crises: Covid-19 and the opioid epidemic • Tracy O’Neill on the domestic lives of those who spy • “We Georgians have a few things to offer to ease the pain—or at least the boredom.” Brian Panowich on the crime writers of Georgia • Scott Turow on Kindle County, Sandy Stern, and a life in fiction • Before there was Jessica Fletcher, there were the Snoop Sisters
