LitHub Daily: November 3, 2015

TODAY: In 1801, Karl Baedeker, a German publisher whose company, Baedeker, set the standard for guidebooks for tourists and thus blocked sidewalks around the world, is born. 

• Chris Shellen meets a ten-inch version of herself, and discovers other wonders in Mark Hogancamp’s miniature WWII town. | Literary Hub
• “What is to become of us?” Donna Tartt’s typewritten, 1986 valedictorian speech from Bennington College. | Literary Hub
• In which Mary Gaitskill presses into metaphorical wounds and figures out how to turn off her interviewer’s recorder. | The New York Times Magazine
• On the occasion of its UK debut, Emily Gould reflects on the importance of I Love Dick, “the most important book about men and women written in the last century.” | The Guardian
• The act of writing poetry is no crime: 116 poets have signed a letter to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei calling for “the immediate nullification of the sentences given to poets Fatemeh Ekhtesari and Mehdi Mousavi.” | PEN America
• “Better to close your eyes and carry on with your own work, pretending the master carpenter doesn’t exist.” Karl Ove Knausgaard finally reads Michel Houellebecq and shares his thoughts. | The New York Times Sunday Book Review
• Surreal fiction, reissues, and new translations: 13 books to look forward to this month. | Vol 1. Brooklyn
• Fiction tells a truth that history cannot and cannot be taught: Lessons from Breyten Breytenbach and Paul Bowles, recounted by their mentees. | Guernica
• “Our founders were really crabby people who were angry a lot of the time.” Sarah Vowell on her newest work of nonfiction, Lafayette in the Somewhat United States. | Slate
• Jill Bialoksy on feminist intentions, writing into a tradition, and her ambivalent relationship with ambition and hype. | Bookslut

Also on Literary Hub: Something akin to a Drake video: the Guernica gala after party · Five books making news: horses, criminals, and flâneurs · A poem-a-day countdown to the Irish Arts Center Poetry Fest: day eleven, Alicia Ostriker · How America has changed (and hasn’t) since Howard Smith first started asking hard questions · And, from The Smith Tapes: an interview with Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey

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