Lit Hub Daily: April 26, 2021

• “Hitchcock alone bears responsibility for his acts of predation, though his behavior was thoroughly facilitated and normalized by the culture.” Edward White looks at the director’s treatment of women. | Lit Hub Film

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• Your week in virtual book events, including a Dolly Parton concert! | Lit Hub

• WATCH: Brandon Taylor in conversation with Japanese Breakfast, a preview from the Mission Creek Festival, streaming this week. | Lit Hub

• “Here, at last, was a quarantine-era home project, that I had the know-how, the means, and apparently the enthusiasm to take on.” Kate Guadagnino on finding solace in restoring a childhood dollhouse. | Lit Hub Life in a Pandemic

• Pip Williams reflects on the women written out of the Oxford English Dictionary’s origin story. | Lit Hub History

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• “How long can an albatross live with a green toothbrush stuck in its gullet?” Allison Cobb on the slow death-by-plastic of an ancient species. | Lit Hub Nature

• Remembering one of the first woman-owned bookshops in America, which Publishers Weekly, in 1916, called “something old-worldly, yet startlingly new.” | Lit Hub Bookstores

• Beyond Socrates: Tom Whyman recommends books that explore philosophy through fiction and autobiography. | Lit Hub Reading Lists

• “Once again Mrs. Woolf makes use of her remarkable method of characterization.” A 1927 review of Virginia Woolf’s novel To the Lighthouse. | Book Marks

• “Why should justice and equality be contingent on a parading of wounds?” Katherine Angel on what happens when women write about their pain. | Aeon

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• Create a biodiverse oasis, even in a concrete jungle: Jeff VanderMeer offers a guide for rewilding a balcony. | Esquire

• “Bailey is the story now, but Roth still looms over it all. This fiasco has tendrils reaching into every level of media and publishing.” Jo Livingstone considers the industry-wide implications of the allegations against Blake Bailey. | The New Republic

• Listen to a podcast interview with Rachel Kushner, wherein she discusses her career-spanning collection of 19 essays, The Hard Crowd. | Bookworm

• “Lolita doesn’t create the abusive sexist culture; it celebrates and beautifies it under the label of deathless romance.” Susan Choi on Lolita, the 1997 film and the Nabokov novel. | The Common

• A re-discovered essay by Raymond Chandler, comprising a set of instructions to his secretary, shows a “more personal and lighthearted” side to the writer. | Los Angeles Times

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• On board a Mediterranean cruise, the late Jan Morris observed passengers “were united in toughness, in resolution, and in enthusiasm.” | The Paris Review

Also on Lit Hub: Margaret Kimball on spilling her family’s secrets through graphic memoir • Read a story by Malika Moustadraf (trans. Alice Guthrie) • Read a story from Joanna Scott’s new collection, Excuse Me While I Disappear