TODAY: In 1905, Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth is published.
- Viet Thanh Nguyen, Jesmyn Ward, and (many) more have been awarded a MacArthur genius grant. | The Washington Post
- “The love interest to me in this little book is writing.” Speaking with Patti Smith about her new book, Devotion. | Hyperallergic
- “I fell at once under the spell of the Master, and have knelt at his knee ever since.” What the novel owes to Henry James. | The Irish Times
- On Ta-Nehisi Coates and Kara Walker’s depictions of America, “a fractured, bigoted society haunted by a past it dare not accept, collapsing under the burden of its own stubborn blindness.” | BOMB Magazine
- “Morrison’s history of Othering represents an intervention in history on several fronts.” On Toni Morrison’s new book of essays, The Origins of Others. | New Republic
- “I don’t mean that I met the man. I mean I stepped into a story he could’ve written.” Victor LaValle shares his Richard Matheson moment. | Electric Literature
- “Most of the things we love are the things that embarrass us.” And Helena Fitzgerald really loves the National. | Nylon
- Was Stevenson’s inspiration for Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde a mahogany cabinet made by a cat burglar? | Atlas Obscura
- “Each red flag, a lesson in worth.” Jeanann Verlee on a life of toxic literary encounters with men. | VIDA
- How should a rigorous scientist and a poet be? Why Thoreau’s two-million word journal is his true masterpiece. | The Atlantic
- The Flame, a book of poems by Leonard Cohen completed in the months before his death, will be published next year. | The Guardian
- A paradise found: Jason Parham on the restorative power of the black barbershop. | The Fader
- “Imitation is the most boring thing you can do with a computer.” An interview with the woman behind the beloved Twitter bot @everyword, which tweeted every word in the English language over the course of 7 years. | Motherboard
- A new project investigating the role of play in our lives and culture has launched with an essay by Virginia Heffernan, a story game by J. Robert Lennon, and more. | PlayTime
- The official trailer for Electric Dreams, a star-studded anthology series based on the work of Philip K. Dick, has been released. | io9
Delving into the little-known friendships of iconic women writers · Rebecca Solnit on Harvey Weinsten and other things that are apparently not men’s fault · Looking at the horribly cruel marginalia in an 1816 edition of Emma · Ottessa Moshfegh on insanity, mistaken identity, and Shirley Jackson’s Dark Tales · A bookseller of 20 years reflects on her favorite books to sell · A selection of Virginia Woolf’s most savage insults · Chris Jackson on something that doesn’t exist, diversity in publishing (and how it can) · Flâneur, lemonade, and 135 other words that belong to specific artists · We have to demystify code: An interview with Ellen Ullman · The call is coming from inside the country estate: The hidden horror of Jane Austen
Book Marks:
On We Were Eight Years in Power, Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “modern book of lamentations” · On the 50th anniversary of his death, a look back at John Lee Anderson’s biography of Che Guevara · “No longer is book criticism a bunch of white men reading books by white men”: Speaking with NBCC President Kate Tuttle · Clear sigh in the dark of the imagination: a 1999 review of Annie Proulx’s Close Range · Naomi Alderman’s Baileys Prize-winning The Power may be “our era’s Handmaid’s Tale” · “Is it about a bicycle?”: Anthony Burgess on Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman · A heaven populated with horrors: A 1987 review of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen · Teenage dragons, electrified women, Ulysses S. Grant, and more: the best-reviewed books of the week
