Lit Hub Daily: April 28, 2022

• George Mendoza and Kristen Witucki discuss what it’s like to be a blind writer writing for sighted readers. | Lit Hub In Conversation

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• Bloody Marys with Red Dawn, surf’n’turf with Point Break—that’s right, it’s a Patrick Swayze pairing guide. | Lit Hub Film & TV

• “All chronic illness has an air of mystery alongside misery, but I am convinced mine should be much less mysterious by now.” Lisa Levy reflects on writing (and reading) pain books. | Lit Hub Health

• Rooseveltian Origins: On Biden’s economic recovery plan and the fate of American democracy. | Lit Hub Politics

• “This is not a moment to be mortal. I am a Balanchine dancer.” Toni Bentley on taking stage at the New York City ballet. | Lit Hub Memoir

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• Susan Straight considers the pleasures of polyphonic novels and learning from one of the best: Louise Erdrich. | Lit Hub Criticism

• “Adaptable and beautiful and full of wonder.” Vaishnavi Patel on trying to capture oral storytelling in writing without losing its magic. | Lit Hub

• “She is a poet who elevates the novel, on a linear level, to something higher.” Check out the 5 Book Reviews You Need to Read this Week. | Book Marks

• What are the best audiobooks of all time? | Esquire

• Researchers studying gender bias in literature found that there were four times more male than female characters in a set of 3,000 books. | The Guardian

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• “Possession puts us in contact with the numinous, it’s an experience of the transcendent in an otherwise disenchanted world.” Ed Simon on the figure of the exorcist. | Los Angeles Review of Books

• “It’s almost like reality moved closer to what I imagined as a sort of speculative future in my book.” Read a profile of Vauhini Vara. | The New York Times

• Ben Sandman considers Adrian Shirk’s Heaven Is a Place on Earth and the unexplored issue of rural gentrification. | The New Republic

• “For many of us from Bosnia, it is easy to recognize the symptoms of genocidal intent, which is what Russia is doing in Ukraine. It is terrifying.” Aleksandar Hemon on what’s different about the war in Ukraine. | The Nation

• Adrienne Raphel considers the poetry of Barneys, “another elite institution that beckoned me as it crumbled.” | The Paris Review

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Also on Lit Hub: The 10 best book covers of April • The real-life heroines of the Gilded Age • Read a story from Paige Clark’s debut collection, She Is Haunted