• Well, here's a bummer: the person who'll be interviewing Michelle Obama at the Tacoma Dome stop on her Becoming reading tour is...Jimmy Kimmel? Couldn't they have found someone with a local tie?

• Here's a great conversation with Victor LaValle and Marlon James about how literary fiction is failing a generation of writers and readers:

Literary realism has this sort of indie-film attitude toward sex. Violence is violent, but sex isn’t sexy. It’s compulsive; nobody’s happy; they enjoy the cigarette way more than the sex. Sometimes I read these novels, none of which I’ll name, and I go, It’s not that hard to enjoy sex, people.

• Here's an interesting thread by Anand Giridharadas, author of the bestselling Winners Take All, about the so-called liberal book world:

So apparently some famous writer was disgraced this week and a venerable literary organization asked me to fill in for him at a dinner to raise money for imperiled writers around the world.

You won’t believe what ensued.

— Anand Giridharadas (@AnandWrites) February 6, 2019