Lit Hub Daily: April 18, 2025
THE BEST OF THE LITERARY INTERNET
TODAY: In 1906, the San Francisco earthquake destroys the new Stanford University Library building before it can be completed. Many of the city’s leading poets and writers retreat to join the arts colony at Carmel-by-the-Sea.
- “The scenes of Holocaust unfold in Eastern Europe, but Reznikoff seems to suggest they could happen anywhere…” Reading Charles Reznikoff’s Holocaust at 50. | Lit Hub Criticism
- This week on the Lit Hub Podcast, Lisa Willis of Cave Canem joins Drew to talk about Magnitude and Bond: A Field Study on Black Literary Arts Organizations. Plus: fighting Trump’s assault on American history and the Lit Hub staff shares some poetry! | Lit Hub Radio
- Matthew Bucknor considers The White Lotus and the literary power of an accusation. | Lit Hub Craft
- Alec Karakatsanis calls out news media for focusing on petty legal violations while ignoring more crucial stories. | Lit Hub History
- “Our culture’s deluded insistence that a nuclear family should be autonomous has far-reaching negative consequences, which include disabled parents losing custody of their kids.” Jessica Slice explores the disastrous challenges of parenting in an ableist system. | Lit Hub Politics
- Mark Synnott on the logistical, environmental and emotional preparations necessary for crossing the Northwest Passage in the era of climate change. | Lit Hub Memoir
- Jonathan Coe’s The Proof of My Innocence, Diarmaid MacCulloch’s Lower Than the Angels, and Dan Nadel’s Crumb, all feature among the best reviewed books of the week. | Book Marks
- Emily Everett recommends novels about coming of age (when you’re old enough to know better) by Louise Kennedy, Raven Leilani, Rowan Beaird, and more. | Lit Hub Reading Lists
- “She’d left two harbors in snow before dawn. Some hours had passed with only the magnetic pull of the lake beneath her, and now the Nocturne was surrounded by fog as dense as paraffin.” Read from Peter Geye’s novel, A Lesser Light. | Lit Hub Fiction
- A small Michigan town helped its bookstore move every single book to a new location via a town-wide human chain | The Guardian
- Meta believes that the books it used to train its LLM have no individual economic value(?!?!) | Vanity Fair
- “This is not a typical swing in messaging as the party in power shifts; it’s a culture falling in on a hollowed-out center.” Ana Marie Cox examines how the far right won entertainment media. | The New Republic
- William Giraldi considers a new book by Peter Brooks and Henry James’s relationships with America and Europe. | The Baffler
- Would Joan Didion have wanted the world to read her notes on therapy? “Posthumous releases often present an ethical minefield for literary estates and publishers, and the questions surrounding Notes to John are particularly fraught.” | The New York Times
- James O’Donnell explores what AI means for music. | MIT Technology Review
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