Lit Hub Daily May 24, 2021
TODAY: In 1895, Henry Irving becomes the first person from the theater to be knighted.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO NOBEL-WINNING POET BOB DYLAN: Clinton Heylin on the writers who helped a young Dylan find his voice · Howard Sounes on the loneliness of an icon’s later years · In praise of Bob Dylan’s verbs · So is he a poet, a songwriter, or a showman? | Lit Hub Music
“It might take an immense cosmic event, like an alien invasion, for humans to coexist without prejudice.” Gabby Bellot on W.E.B. Du Bois’ radical sci-fi story “The Comet.” | Lit Hub Criticism
Dreaming of summer road trips? Here are five great memoirs-as-audiobooks you should take with you. | Lit Hub
How stories allow us to “rehearse through a continuous stream of what-ifs,” a human skill that’s actually a lot more useful than it sounds. | Lit Hub
Arielle Zibrak against the concept of “guilty pleasure” literature (and dudes lying about reading Faulkner on their dating profiles). | Lit Hub Criticism
“What power of dissent, if any, does a child wield in his or her powerlessness?” Linda Rui Feng on writing from the precarious hunger of childhood. | Lit Hub
Brave New World, A Room with a View, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, and more rapid-fire book recs from Kevin Kwan. | Book Marks Thessaly La Force considers the complexity of creatively charged romantic partnerships, from the Shelleys to de Beauvoir and Sartre. | T Magazine
“The word homes is antithetical to the idea of ‘home.’” Aminatta Forna travels to the Shetland Islands in search of her family’s past. | Orion
Nico Walker takes a deep dive into his childhood memories and his favorite authors. | Vol. 1 Brooklyn
“We protect kids from racist ideas by pointing them out.” Ibram X. Kendi, Sonja Cherry-Paul, and Jason Reynolds discuss the new “remix” of Stamped. | Kirkus
How does the media cover extremism and white nationalism? A divisive editorial choice by the Montana Standard has sparked debate about ethics and journalistic responsibility. | Study Hall
“To read Jelinek is to find oneself confronted with the liberating realization that a book can be ugly—as ugly as the world it describes.” On the linguistic possibilities of Elfriede Jelinek. | The Point
A new wave of nonfiction books is “keen on indexing the breadth and significance of Black expression, especially through the lens of women’s lives,” Danielle A. Jackson writes. | Vulture
Here’s what the controversy over Simon & Schuster’s decision to publish Mike Pence looked like from inside the company. | The Wall Street Journal
NEW ON LIT HUB RADIO
Jenn Shapland on confronting her own sexuality to tell Carson McCullers’s story, on Big Table. * Hala Alyan explores the psychology of fear, on Emergence Magazine. * Anna North on finding a narrative space between dystopia and utopia, on First Draft. * On The History of Literature, Jacke Wilson digs into the life and writings * Barton Gellman considers how Edward Snowden strengthened American democracy, on Keen On.
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