Lit Hub Daily: August 23, 2022

TODAY: In 1923, Iraqi poet Nazik al-Malaika, the first Arabic poet to use free verse, is born.  

• “I felt I could be my truest sexual self.” A brief political—and personal—history of gay bathhouses from Rasheed Newson. | Lit Hub History

  Article continues after advertisement
  Remove Ads

• “The truth is that attention-seeking is both anathema and integral to art.” Lauren Acampora on the particular pain of book promotion. | Lit Hub

• Linda Kinstler examines the “carefully orchestrated” Little Nuremberg trial in Riga, a signal to the world that the Soviets had returned to Latvia. | Lit Hub

• Madam and the Census Man: What Langston Hughes understood about how power shapes US Census data. | Lit Hub Politics

• Allison Wyss considers The Expanse, public health, and the “revelatory struggle” to reclaim one’s body. | Lit Hub Film & TV

  Article continues after advertisement
  Remove Ads

• Barbara Lane offers a brief history of the book blurb. | San Francisco Chronicle

• On the evolving role of libraries and the people who work in them: “Librarians, in turn, have been called on to play the role of welfare workers, first responders, therapists, and security guards.” | California Healthline

• “In the act of recalling happiness, memory becomes distorted.” Cecily Wong considers homesickness and nostalgia. | The Millions

• Amanda Gorman talks to Kaitlyn Greenidge about poetry, possibility, and changing the world. | Harper’s Bazaar

• “Through the menu, Regan was taking a popular narrative and questioning it by presenting it through food.” Rachel P. Kreiter on the work of chef Iliana Regan, who specializes in “cooking fanfiction.” | Eater

  Article continues after advertisement
  Remove Ads

• Nick Ripatrazone makes the case for John Cheever’s “The Swimmer” as the perfect late summer read. | Gawker

• “The techniques of the 19th-century novel offer so many opportunities to put characters through their paces.” Alice Elliott Dark on writing Fellowship Point, her first book in 20 years.  | Los Angeles Review of Books

Also on Lit Hub: Jincy Willett on writing from life without betraying anyone • Reading Proust in a black and white world • Read from Abdulrazak Gurnah’s latest novel, Afterlives

---