Lit Hub Weekly April 5 - 9, 2021
TODAY: In 1925, The Great Gatsby is published.
“I imagine you might still remember his name, since the 1978 season was all his.” Haruki Murakami on the magical year that Dave Hilton debuted for the Yakult Swallows. | Lit Hub Sports
“I don’t think this discussion about grabbing the reader is really about attention spans. I think it’s about art, about storytelling itself...” Donna Freitas on the craft lessons writers can learn from YA. | Lit Hub Craft
“Franny and Zooey are spiritual freaks in this materialist world, and they can never quite fully separate the two.” Avram Alpert on the role of Zen Buddhism in Salinger’s novel. | Lit Hub Criticism
Susan Bordo on Tony Soprano, the iconic mob boss who inaugurated a new (and raw) version of masculinity. | Lit Hub
Alexandra Kleeman on Helen Oyeyemi’s Peaces, Helen Phillips on Jeff VanderMeer’s Hummingbird Salamander, and more of the Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks
Olivia Rutigliano ranks the 100 best, worst, and strangest Sherlock Holmes portrayals of all time. | CrimeReads
Christina Lee, the showrunner of the HBO adaptation of Alissa Nutting’s Made for Love, discusses subverting the sci-fi genre, finding creative satisfaction, and casting Ray Romano. | AV Club 
Reading early in the morning, it turns out, is pretty great. | New York Magazine
Read the late Binyavanga Wainaina’s first piece of fiction—the newly rediscovered story “Binguini!” first published in 1996. | Boston Review
“Why would I cut, let alone kill, that which most delights me?” R.O. Kwon makes the case for sparing your darlings. | Catapult
How Empowerment Avenue Writer’s Cohort—an organization that pairs incarcerated writers with journalists and writers on the outside—is helping to bring incarcerated viewpoints to more mainstream publications. | Columbia Journalism Review
“Thanking an audience member for attending a Zoom is not the same as thanking them in the same physical place.” On what we lost when we lost in-person readings. | McSweeney’s
What’s the difference between a “real” poem and a “hoax” poem (and more questions from the dawn of modernism). | JSTOR
“‘Cancel’ and ‘woke’ are the latest terms to originate in Black culture only to be appropriated into the White mainstream and subsequently thrashed to death.” On the origin and cultural journey of “cancel.” | The Washington Post 
“He loved language viscerally, the way you would expect somebody who devotes a life to literature would, and so few in that world do.” Remembering Giancarlo DiTrapano. | The Believer
Harron Walker on the many phases of her relationship with Torrey Peters: “elder and newbie, mentor and protégé, and for a time, most intimately, mother and daughter.” | W Magazine
“It took so much labor, not only on behalf of me, but also of my family and of my village, to get here.” Doreen St. Félix profiles Amanda Gorman. | Vogue
Fair warning: Ling Ma on her favorite foods will make you hungry. | Entropy
Granta has compiled a list of the best young Spanish-language novelists that includes Carlos Fonseca, Cristina Morales, Diego Zúñiga, and more than 20 others. | Granta
“Before 2020, I had never before thought to explore theater beyond one or two plays, considering it a luxury for those more able-bodied or in certain cities.” Esmé Weijun Wang on the increased accessiblity of theater amid the pandemic. | The New York Times Magazine
Jeff VanderMeer points out what’s wrong with our conversations about the climate crisis. | Interview Magazine
ENTER FOR A CHANCE TO WIN
ALSO THIS WEEK ON LITERARY HUB
Phillip Lopate considers America’s post-WWII essay boom • On the foundational white supremacy of border control • Erik Hoel on the joy of growing up in an indie bookstore • Gina Frangello on rage and infidelity • Judy Batalion on Jewish resistance fighters in Poland • Writing advice from Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney • Rick Moody takes a close look at Rick Schatzberg’s The Boys • Five audiobooks that celebrate trailblazing women • Cynthia L. Haven on the unsung translator George L. Kline • Steve Hall recommends seven formally innovative books • Michio Kaku has some questions about black holes • Sanjena Sathian on balancing solitude and community at an MFA • A brief history of literary marginalia • Helen Oyeymi talks to Kristin Iversen about setting her new novel on a train • How Bruce Springsteen’s “Jungleland” inspired a debut novel • Gabrielle Bluestone on the Fyre Festival and the evil genius of hype • How The Matrix paved the way for the Marvel universe • Nothing but love for a writer’s-blocked, anxious Jane Austen • A physician turns to J.M. Coetzee to consider elder care • How Leonora Carrington’s self-portrait helped Michaela Carter fictionalize the infamous artist • Victoria Law on the historical inevitably of the modern prison system • On Tolkien’s lifelong linguistic obsession • Ed Simon on Pittsburgh, the Paris of Appalachia • Morgan Jerkins recommends books that capture Black motherhood • Mark Edmundson’s boyhood (and perpetual) love for Walt Whitman • Tiana Nobile on the origin stories of Asian-American adoptees • Jessica Bacal has some advice for moving on from rejection • Kate Lebo traces a symbolic history of pomegranates • Targeted ads are more than just creepy—they’re also incredibly dangerous to democracy • Raynor Winn recommends nature memoirs • Stephanie Dray travels to Auvergne to uncover the history of Adrienne Lafayette • Jasmin Darznik on legendary photographer Dorothea Lange
THE BEST OF BOOK MARKS
The Art of the Hand-Sell: booksellers from nine indies rave about their favorite reads • Sabbath’s Theater, Kidnapped, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, and more rapid-fire book recs from Phillip Lopate • White Oleander, Beloved, A Home at the End of the World, and more rapid-fire book recs from Chelsea Bieker • New titles by Haruki Murakami, Jeff VanderMeer, Rachel Kushner, and Brandi Carlile all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week
JOIN US THIS WEEKEND
NEW ON CRIMEREADS
Dario Diofebi with a brief moral history of online poker • Legendary critic Marilyn Stasio on a lifetime of book reviews • Neuroscientist and novelist Erik Hoel thinks murder mysteries are a lot like science • Flynn Berry on the hidden history of women and the IRA • Edward Brooke-Hitching on the most indecipherable coded text ever discovered • Adele Parks with characters so bad, they’re great • Jane Healey honors the pioneering women spies of the OSS • Jennifer McMahon with scary reads for scary times • Dan Stout on striking a balance between world-building and action • Richard O’Rawe, a former bank robber for the IRA, on writing a heist novel |
