Lit Hub Daily August 23, 2021
TODAY: In 1908, playwright Arthur Adamov is born.
“It was the only time that I was glad to be on speakerphone, because each time my students read aloud from ‘Gold Coast,’ I began to cry.” Francine Prose on teaching James Alan McPherson to incarcerated students. | Lit Hub
Robert Frost’s maple, Ross Gay’s peach, Valeria Luiselli’s orange, and more of the most memorable trees in literature. | Lit Hub Nature
Friends and colleagues remember the late writer and legendary publisher Roberto Calasso. | Lit Hub
“Because he reads, he knows more than he wants to, and he knows it too well to forget it.” Heather Cass White on the crime and punishment of literacy in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. | Lit Hub Criticism
Misunderstanding Thoreau: Steve Edwards considers what we miss when we approach literature—and life—through a neurotypical lens. | Lit Hub
“There is something going on in the Spanish language and it’s thrilling.” Meet Granta’s next generation of important Spanish novelists. | Lit Hub
White Noise, The Sellout, Middlemarch, and more rapid-fire book recs from Kerri Arsenault. | Book Marks
On Keen On, Bill Steigerwald discusses life undercover as a Black man in the Jim Crow South. | Lit Hub Virtual Book Channel 
Max Ableson reveals the best place on the internet: the comments section of the Internet Archive’s Grateful Dead collection. | n+1
“Does poetry allow us to reach out to our dead?” On poems as intimate conversations with the ones gone before. | Public Books
Leïla Slimani considers her research process, the role of nostalgia, and Moroccan history. | The Cut
“When people ask me what I did in Afghanistan, I tell them that I hung out in planes and listened to the Taliban.” What Ian Fritz learned from eavesdropping on the enemy. | The Atlantic
Diane Williams discusses her forthcoming short story collection and the pursuit of pleasure. | The Millions
Domenic Cregan looks back on Sherwood Anderson’s 1919 short story cycle, Winesburg, Ohio, which features “moments of Joycean epiphany and likely-unintentional meta-fiction.” | The Cleveland Review of Books
Matthew Specktor reflects on creating a portrait of Los Angeles and the “writers, actors, directors, and musicians who straddle the line between success and anonymity.” | Los Angeles Review of Books
Jill Murphy, the children’s book author known and loved for the Worst Witch novels, has died at 72. | The Guardian
NEW ON LIT HUB RADIO
Laura Marsh talks about the enduring appeal of Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair, on The History of Literature. * Edward Hirsch on the poet's celebration of grief, on First Draft.
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