The Best of the Literary Internet, Every Day
TODAY: In 1818, John Keats and Samuel Taylor Coleridge go for a walk on Hampstead Heath. In a letter to his brother George, Keats writes that they talked about “a thousand things.”
- “The tabloid-style reporting by writers of the early twentieth century is consistent with a long tradition of such storytelling about artists.” Jim Moske explores the Met Archives for posthumous artist stories lost to time. | Lit Hub Art
- If you have trouble keeping a journal, maybe it’s okay to stop trying. Dennis Tang on the joys of not writing it all down. | Lit Hub Criticism
- Maris Kreizman argues that there are too many books. Or rather, that quantity over quality is an industry-wide issue. | Lit Hub Book News
- “I think one of the features of nonfiction today is that, to a degree, a book could be written by anyone possessed of a certain level of knowledge. The area of expertise might change, but quite often, there’s nothing particularly distinct about the writing or the thought.” George Makari interviews Geoff Dyer. | Lit Hub In Conversation
- “The collection reads like a juvenile burn book, totally uninterested in the world outside her group chat.” The much-ballyhooed Bookforum review of Lauren Oyler’s No Judgement, and more of the reviews you need to read this week. | Book Marks
- Henriette Lazaridis on Rachel Cusk, “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” and writing a novel where Greeks speak for themselves: “As the only child of Greek parents, I grew up in America familiar with the well-meaning misunderstandings of my parents’ native land.” | Lit Hub Criticism
- On the Pilobolus Dance Theatre and finding community in the creation of corporeal art. | Lit Hub Art
- “There is a street in Seoul where all the homosexuals go to buy drinks, linger, fall in love, or just spend the night in a love motel.” Read from Ery Shin’s new novel, Spring on the Peninsula. | Lit Hub Fiction
- On the Impressionists (and what to read if you’re interested in them). | JSTOR Daily
- “Recognizing the applicability of the logic of possession through whiteness—albeit in a slightly different form than Arvin’s construction—to Micronesia allows for a more capacious understanding of racialization across the Pacific Islands.” An examination of colonialism in the Pacific. | Public Books
- Tony Tulathimutte considers the rejection plot. | The Paris Review
- Considering the intersections of art, automation, and capitalism via Dominique Routhier’s With and Against. | 3:AM
- “What’s particularly striking about the present moment is how the accumulated contradictions of American political economy have reached an impasse.” Revisiting Karl Marx’s The Eighteenth Brumaire. | Jacobin
- “Bad writers with strong ideological convictions, like me, at least have a burning sense of political grievance to fuel their output. Not so with Paul.” Hamilton Nolan on Pamela Paul, and other columnists. | How Things Work
