Lit Hub Daily: August 11, 2020

• “Don’t make any noise and move as little as possible.” Jonathan C. Slaght spends a long, surreal night in Russia’s Far East, in search of the elusive fish owl. | Lit Hub Nature
• Though this be madness, yet there is method in ‘t(his ranking of 40 Hamlets). | Lit Hub
• Letter from Minneapolis: Michael Kleber-Diggs on listening to Big Boi, dancing through grief, and the complex flavors of Black joy. | Lit Hub Politics
• Jean Guerrero on how Stephen Miller abandoned the lessons of his Jewish ancestors. | Lit Hub Biography
• “The privilege of crossing the pink/blue divide was once only accorded to white girls.” Lisa Selin Davis on the racist history of the American tomboy. | Lit Hub History
• “when i say Chicago.” A poem from Nate Marshall’s collection, Finna. | Lit Hub Poetry
• Raven Leilani, Héctor Tobar, Jessica Gross, and more take the Lit Hub Author Questionnaire. | Lit Hub
• One week after the devastating explosion in Beirut, writers reflect: A poem by Philip Metres • A dispatch from Rima Rantisi. | Lit Hub
• Susanna Lee on the world of Robert B. Parker’s Spenser and the birth of the 1970s private detective. | CrimeReads
• Diane Cook recommends five books about wildernesses, from The Call of the Wild to Station Eleven. | Book Marks
• “My God, I thought, we’re not in this together. The social contract is breaking.” Laila Lalami on what the pandemic has shown us about America—and Americans. | LARB
• “I got to write queer sex that’s taboo and tender at the same time and that’s the space that’s interesting to me.” Akwaeke Emezi on poetry, naming, and their favorite part of The Death of Vivek Oji. | Zora
• A new exhibition in Geneva, Scrivere Disegnando, focuses on imaginary languages and their representations. | Hyperallergic
• How Indigenous language preservation activists have reimagined (and expanded) their revitalization campaigns under quarantine. | Slate
• A new, rigorous literacy curriculum has inspired struggling students to read in one Tennessee district. | The Atlantic
• After Hudda Ibrahim’s niece asked why children’s books don’t feature kids like her, she wrote one, backed by a successful Kickstarter campaign. | Associated Press
• In praise of Sofia Coppola’s Virgin Suicides adaptation, which “show[s] the lives of teenage girls beyond the gaze of boys and men.” | AV Club

Also on Lit Hub: Frédéric Chopin in exile: The making of a Romantic • When one doctor-turned-novelist reads another • Read an excerpt from Daniel Galera’s novel Twenty After Midnight, trans. by Julia Sanches.