Footnotes, June 2021: Book links from around the web

At The Reading List, we’re trainspotters when it comes to interesting book links, and here are a number that caught our eye.

RIP Eric Carle, who wrote a perfect book. Did you know? “This story of Eric Carle and his publisher “fighting bitterly over the stomachache scene” in The Very Hungry Caterpillar is fake.” Shame on you, Paris Review. (But also: this is too brilliant for words.)
Here’s an Eric Carle fan thread on a British newspaper site with too much advertising.
And here is the best book review lede of the month. “If you’re a person who harbors notions about the glamour of the writing life, THE PLOT will jettison them to the deepest, darkest trench of the ocean floor. If you’re a novelist who has endured the humiliation of a reading with no audience, Jean Hanff Korelitz’s latest novel will help you laugh about the empty room. And if you’re a reader who likes stories where a terrible decision snowballs out of control, this book is just what the librarian ordered. Welcome to a spectacular avalanche.”
Yeah, that cancelled Philip Roth bio is back.
This new dictionary of ancient Greek will βινέω you up.
Feeling a bit stuck politically? Thomas Mann might be able to help you.
The writer Louis Menand talks American best sellers right over here.
COVID has, alas, ruined the arts economy. We don’t appreciate quite how bad it is.
But here’s some good news on the lit front.
Finally, PUBLISHERS BEWARE WHEN YOU STUFF UP AN AUTHOR’S JACKETS.