TODAY: In 1926, C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien met for the first time, made puns, drank port.
- “There is something about the study of creative writing that makes people—from both inside and outside the discipline—love to bash it.” Marian Palaia on the real world vs. MFA. | Literary Hub
- VICE asked French Muslims how they feel about the PEN/Charlie Hebdo controversy. | VICE
- “What do we make of [Saul] Bellow’s presentation of the typical intellectual as a virile many-wived, or at least many-lovered, creature?” Pray tell, Gary Shteyngart. | NYRB
- Mark Doty, a “nuanced perceiver of the signals people give out,” has written a new poetry collection and planted a glorious garden. | The Guardian
- Leanne Shapton interviewed Heidi Julavits, who communicated only through eBay links. | The Paris Review
- An official advisory: find a way, other than Shakespeare, to demonstrate your erudition in English. | Slate
- Swimming into a sea of jellyfish: on writing as a way of resisting suicide. | The Millions
- Embracing the barbaric yawp: an interview with John Ashbery. | The New York Times Sunday Book Review
- “Significant flattening of the point leads to the supposition that the original owner, Mr. Plato, talked and at continuously.” Same, Mr. Plato. An excerpt from Valeria Luiselli’s The Story of My Teeth. | BOMB Magazine
- In bookstore news: Penn Books has closed, Commonwealth Books is consolidating into a single store, and a pop-up used bookstore is opening in NoMa. | DNAinfo, Business News, Hill Now
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