Lit Hub Daily: April 5, 2021

TODAY: In 1856, Booker T. Washington, American educator, author, orator, and adviser to several presidents of the United States, is born. 

• “I imagine you might still remember his name, since the 1978 season was all his.” Haruki Murakami on the magical year that Dave Hilton debuted for the Yakult Swallows. | Lit Hub Sports

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• “Still photography implies a highly subjective, carefully elucidated story of gaps, and wishes, and losses, and desires.” Rick Moody takes a close look at Rick Schatzberg’s The Boys. | Lit Hub Photography

• James Tate Hill spotlights five audiobooks that celebrate trailblazing women, featuring Cicely Tyson and Jennifer Doudna. | Lit Hub

• Jeff VanderMeer talks to Drew Broussard about rewilding his Tallahassee yard, committing to climate activism after the success of Annihilation, and the case (or not) for hope. | Lit Hub Climate Change

• Glenn Dixon recommends his top ten novels about the rise and fall of fictional rock stars. | Lit Hub Reading Lists

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• “His translations were important not only because they were the first, but because they tried to preserve the metrical and rhyme schemes of the original, often with surprising sensitivity.” Cynthia L. Haven on the unsung translator George L. Kline, who brought Joseph Brodsky into English. | Lit Hub Biography

• Are contemporary actors getting Shakespeare’s rhythms all wrong? | JSTOR Daily

• “A common struggle links Amazon consumer to Amazon worker.” On the curse of “convenience.” | New York Magazine

• Why does the publishing industry keep paying politicians huge advances for books that rarely sell well? (Looking at yours, Cuomo.) | The New Republic

• Read the late Binyavanga Wainaina’s first piece of fiction—the newly rediscovered story “Binguini!” first published in 1996. | Boston Review

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• “The idea you could get a hot dog—that was like, whoa. That hot dog was a big thing.” Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden recalls her first baseball game with her grandfather. | Washingtonian

• Christina Lee, the showrunner of the HBO adaptation of Alissa Nutting’s Made for Love, discusses subverting the sci-fi genre, finding creative satisfaction, and casting Ray Romano. | AV Club

Also on Lit Hub: Phillip Lopate considers America’s post-WWII essay boom • Todd Miller on the foundational white supremacy of border control • Read Brandon Taylor’s new short story, “Mass”

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