Lit Hub Daily: August 23, 2023

• “No one needs my opinion about books.” Longtime indie bookseller Josh Cook against the cultural authoritarianism of “good taste.” | Lit Hub Criticism

• When folk went mainstream: On Harry Everett Smith and the cultural paradigm shift that his Anthology of American Folk Music. | Lit Hub Music

• “Barbieland, like Eden, is sumptuous, sweet, and sufficient in every sense.” Orlando Reade draws the parallels between Barbie and Paradise Lost. | Lit Hub

• Kyo Maclear recommends seeking out a “psychic surgeon” for coming to peace with family secrets. | Lit Hub Memoir

• A former law enforcement park ranger goes on the trail to find answers after a thru-hiker disappears. | CrimeReads

• How to move your books (without breaking your back). | The Washington Post

• …or you could just get rid of them. | Slate

• In “Notes on the International Lightning Strike Survivor Conference,” Chloe Aridjis tells the tales of six people who have been struck by lightning—and lived to share their experiences. | The Dial

• “There are reasons to be really scared, but there are also reasons to be hopeful.” Josh Cook discusses bookselling in the age of book-banning. | Esquire

• A dozen translators recommend recent favorite books written and translated by women. | Words Without Borders

• “I don’t live in Seoul, but it’s still, always, a kind of home.” R.O. Kwon’s guide to the city. | Travel + Leisure

Also on Lit Hub: On the death of the comedy blockbuster • Lou Matthews on the long, booby-trapped road to publication • Read from Attila Bartis’s newly translated novel, The End (tr. Judith Sollosy)