Lit Hub Daily: August 12, 2019

• “Touch base,” “least worst option,” and more Americanisms the British can’t bloody stand. | Lit Hub
• Sorry, old white guys: turns out, vocal fry has “a unique history and specific social utility.” | Lit Hub
• “I went to see what kinds of lost things can be found.” Susan Harlan on the bittersweet feeling of reconnecting with a forgotten language. | Lit Hub
• Loathing, leaving and coming to love Albuquerque: Sean Gandert on the meaning of querencia. | Lit Hub
• “One reason we find ourselves dependably amused by tacky 70s fluff is that we need to keep the trauma and perplexity of the era at bay.” On the weirdness of the weirdest decade. | Lit Hub
• This week in Shhh… Secrets of the Librarians: the founder of Ghana’s wondrous one-woman library. | Book Marks
• Sherri Smith on seven of the wellness industry’s worst criminals. | CrimeReads
• The 1962 African Writers Conference was a historic meeting of some of the world’s most prominent African authors. Since then, massive literary gatherings throughout the continent haven’t been as popular—until recently. | Quartz Africa
• “Of all the things I did not expect to see on the barricades outside San Juan’s Justice Department after midnight, it was a boy blowing a shofar at the cops.” Molly Crabapple reports from Puerto Rico. | NYRB
• Sorry to disappoint, Tolkien fans of the First and Third Ages of Middle Earth: the fantasy author’s estate is strictly limiting future Lord of the Rings Netflix series to the little-known “Second Age.” | Yahoo!
• In which Amal El-Mohtar wonders: why are there so many new books about time traveling lesbians? | The Guardian
• What were people reading in the summer of ‘69? Jacqueline Susann, The Godfather, and a little book by a medical student named Michael Crichton. | The New York Times Book Review
• “Charlie Chaplin was adamant that the true author ‘had an aristocratic attitude’ and wasn’t a glover’s son.” On the weird world (and celebrity endorsements) of Shakespeare conspiracy theories. | Inside Hook
• Can you match disembodied locks of hair to famous authors? Take this quiz and find out! | Public Books

Also on Lit Hub: Gregory Orr on rebuilding a life when nothing makes sense • Ten debut novels nobody reads anymore—but should • Read from Richard Russo’s new novel Chances Are…