Lit Hub Daily: April 20, 2023

• “I think we are filled with little baby demons.” Eileen Myles on discovering the poetic core of everyday life. | Lit Hub Poetry

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• Emma Staffaroni muses on The Last of Us, Station Eleven, and the kind of pandemic storytelling we actually need right now. | Lit Hub Criticism

• The case for having more dinner parties with friends. | Lit Hub Food

• How “unlikable” can a rom-com lead be? | Lit Hub

• “The truth may sometimes hurt, but the lies are in bed with collective death.” 5 Book Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks

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• Check out anime legend Hayao Miyazaki’s favorite kid’s books. | Open Culture

• “You can bet your local indie bookstore is paying taxes.” Lydia Davis on refusing to sell her next book on Amazon. | The Guardian

• Jennifer Wilson considers the pool parties and class war of Emma Cline’s latest novel, The Guest. | The Nation

• Rita Dove, Jeannette Winterson, Joy Harjo, Weike Wang, Margaret Atwood, Sigrid Nunez, Mona Awad, Raven Leilani, Layli Long Soldier, and more all feature in T Magazine’s “Legends and Heirs” feature. | T Magazine

• Michelle Obama surprised—and delighted—random patrons at a local bookstore in Manhattan the other day. | HuffPost

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• Here are the finalists for the NYPL’s Young Lions Fiction Award. | The Hub

Also on Lit Hub: How Board Game Geek made games more inclusive • Xiu Xiu’s James Stewart on sex as escape, being a jerk, and “alcohol-fueled insanity” • Read from Han Kang’s newly translated collection, Greek Lessons (tr. Deborah Smith and Emily Yae Won)