TODAY: In 1925, The Great Gatsby is published.
- “I projected a lot of symbolic value onto that tree, which grew despite adversity: The place was a superfund site.” Ariel Courage explores America’s polluted urban ruins. | Lit Hub Climate Change
- Maris Kreizman asks what it means to be a good author when you publish a book. | Lit Hub Craft
- Dinaw Mengestu on PEN America’s commitment to free expression: “PEN America’s defense and advocacy must be rendered vigorously and equitably, regardless of who sits in power.” | Lit Hub Politics
- Viet Thanh Nguyen explores “the joy of otherness” and questions of authenticity. | Lit Hub Craft
- Jon Hickey’s TBR includes work by Katie Kitamura, Denis Johnson, Kyle Edwards, and more! | Lit Hub Criticism
- “How do we lie to ourselves so convincingly, and what is the cost of those lies?” 5 book reviews you need to read this week. | Book Marks
- Uttama Kirit Patel recommends books that explore motherhood and intention by Constance Debré, Julie Phillips, Anna Hogeland, and more. | Lit Hub Reading Lists
- “It’s been three months since they saw each other, and Gareth wonders if his father will recognise him.” Read from Thomas Morris’s collection, Open Up. | Lit Hub Fiction
- “Leonard Bernstein famously titled his lecture on Symphonie Fantastique “Berlioz Takes a Trip,” referring to the psychedelic nature of its reveries.” Angelica Frey explores the literary lineage of a musical masterpiece. | JSTOR Daily
- Art Spiegelman remembers Jules Feiffer: “It’s a mongrel art—a mutt!—and every great master of comix must find a new way to use the distinct skills of writing and drawing to create a new way of transforming time into space.” | The Atlantic
- Edna Bonhomme considers Zora Neale Hurston’s lost epic, The Life of Herod the Great. | The Nation
- Anna Wiener explores translating technology into language and asks if AI writing can ever be more than a gimmick. | The New Yorker
- Chris Heath dives into Robert Caro’s abandoned novel (about an intrepid journalist on a busman’s holiday). | Smithsonian Magazine
- Jane Stern meditates on the life and death of roadside attractions. | The Paris Review
