Lit Hub Daily: August 20, 2024
THE BEST OF THE LITERARY INTERNET
TODAY: In 1932, Vasily Aksyonov, one of the last Soviet-era writers to endure a ban by Kremlin censors and be stripped of his citizenship, is born.
- Why libraries are often deliberate targets during war: “For book lovers, there is something profoundly, almost viscerally disturbing about a library on fire.” | Lit Hub Libraries
- “On paper, Enoch’s travels don’t sound that dissimilar to reported nonhuman encounters.” Luis Elizondo on beings from the heavens, government secrecy, and the similarities between religious experiences and UFO sightings. | Lit Hub Politics
- Alexis Pauline Gumbs on the iconic life and legacy of Audre Lorde. | Lit Hub Biography
- Is death supposed to mark a sad occasion? Spencer Henry and Madison Reyes explore festive mourning practices across eras and cultures. | Lit Hub Humor
- Danez Smith, Gayl Jones and more! These 27 new books are out today. | Lit Hub Reading Lists
- Read “Last Black American Poem” by Danez Smith, from the collection Bluff. | Lit Hub Poetry
- Jane Ciabattari talks to Lena Valencia about the desert: “The wilderness may be beautiful, but it’s not simply pretty scenery and can be dangerous if one isn’t prepared for the extremes of the landscape.” | Lit Hub In Conversation
- “By the age of twelve, Emilia Bassano knew that most people saw only what they expected to see.” Read from Jodi Picoult’s novel, By Any Other Name. | Lit Hub Fiction
- Louis Menand ponders the point of the bookstore. | The New Yorker
- In cahoots with the National Book Foundation, the novelist Alejandro Varela surveys literary gems from the 1990s. | The Washington Post
- “The means by which the woman writer makes herself—which is to say, by her words—is also what people grab on to as they tear her down.” Annie Berke on television’s version of a woman writer. | Los Angeles Review of Books
- Jennifer Egan reflects on A Visit from the Goon Squad. | The New York Times
- How Dorothy Richardson pioneered stream of consciousness English prose. | JSTOR Daily
- “Who else could have imagined such a motley ensemble but someone who had jostled with the many flavors of humanity?” Camille Ralphs considers Chaucer’s infinite interpretability. | Poetry
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