If you’re an American, I hope you have a safe and healthy 4th of July weekend, at home! Everyone else: Please be well, and we’ll see you again on Monday.

A bit of news: The Heir Affair comes out on TUESDAY in the US and you can buy it here:

We’re also doing an event on Tuesday with NPR’s, and author of Evvie Drake Starts Over, Linda Holmes. It’s a ticketed event through Vroman’s bookstore, and the cost of the ticket gets you a signed hardback copy of the book. We’d love to see you there (virtually!).

If you are in Canada, the paperback is already out, but the Kindle and hardcover versions also come out the 7th.  (Chapters Indigo made us the Fiction Book of the Month!)

That bit of business taken care of, to the rest of the links:

Jasmine Guillory wrote this great piece, for Time: Reading Anti-Racist Nonfiction Is a Start. But Don’t Underestimate the Power of Black Fiction

This is amazing, at the NYT: The Radical Quilting of Rosie Lee Tompkins.

Also at the NYT: ‘A Conflicted Cultural Force’: What It’s Like to Be Black in Publishing

I thought this was very illuminating, and personally educational, at the National Post, about Canada Day: ‘No celebrations’: Indigenous communities, leaders share Canada Day frustrations. 

Related, at Smithsonian, is this piece that they’ve updated and added to regularly, since 2003: Do American Indians celebrate the 4th of July? (It’s interesting that they’re treating this post like a living document.)

Also at Smithsonian, from 2016 but certainly very timely now (I saw this because it’s currently one of their most-read posts): The Sordid History of Mount Rushmore. 

Very nostalgic, at Jezebel: What’s Your Summer Reading Pick From This 1999 Doubleday Book Club Ad?

This was a really illuminating piece, at the NYT, about Black wine professionals.

Texas Monthly continues to be great, this time with: Do You Have What It Takes to Be a Master Auctioneer? Eight days inside America’s Auction Academy, learning the secrets of “the dynamo from Dallas.”

Speaking of logistics, this is swell, at Vulture:  The (Fake) Songs of Summer A compendium of the infectious tunes in Will Ferrell’s Eurovision Song Contest.

At GQ, this is a lovely interview with Yo-Yo Ma.

This is really interesting, at Harper’s Bazaar: André Leon Talley on the Influential Black Fashion Designers You Should Know

Glamour’s 2020 College Women of the Year are amazing and inspirational.

At Bitch: This Year, Pride Returned to Its Radical Roots

Have you seen this homemade Jane Austen Monopoly game? It’s amazing. [via Twitter]

At Lainey: Six Months of Ben and Ana. Feels like six years!

This is great, at The Cut: I Dressed Like Catherine the Great for a Week

At the NYT: Man Falls Through the Floor and Discovers a Well Beneath a Connecticut House. Who hasn’t?

This is a lovely piece about Madeline Kahn at Bright Wall/Dark Room.

I’ve heard the new Baby-Sitters Club TV series is wonderful, which is great news. Those books are very dear to my heart. At the NYT: The Baby-Sitters Club Taught Me Everything I Needed to Know About Literary Fiction

At Socialite Life: TikTok Saved Judi Dench’s Life During Quarantine

And, finally, at Primetimer: Beat by Beat: The Time Susan Lucci Broke Her Daytime Emmys Losing Streak

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