Lit Hub Daily: August 1, 2023

• Ann Patchett on her writing routine, her best teacher, and picking what to read next. | Lit Hub Questionnaire

• 27 new books to kick off your August. | The Hub

• “By learning about wine, you can learn almost anything.” Michelle Wildgen extols the joys of food-centered fiction. | Lit Hub Food

• Mindy Mejia on writing a thriller featuring an atmospheric physicist… while knowing little to nothing about physics. | Lit Hub Science

• “It is inconceivable to me that love ends.” Rebecca Sacks on fictionalizing her love story with an Israeli solider. | Lit Hub

• “The 8th Note Press news seems more ominous coming at a time of declining book sales, publishing layoffs, and crumbling social platforms.” Tajja Isen on TikTok’s new publishing venture. | The Walrus

• Grace Lavery writes about three recent books from the “gender critical” movement. | Los Angeles Review of Books

• “Short of abandoning the genre altogether, as Shields recommended in 2010, today a novel ought to help save the world.” Jessi Jezewska Stevens on “post-postfiction.” | The Point

• Greta Rainbow looks at the gamification of reading at the beige books site. | Shondaland

• Alhelí Harvey considers fictional depictions of dreary dystopias and digital loneliness. | Public Books  

Also on Lit Hub: 7 new poetry books to read in August • Jimin Han on filling narrative blank spaces • Read from Edan Lepucki’s latest novel, Time’s Mouth