Lit Hub Daily: August 24, 2021

• Wondering what to read first during the upcoming season of books and plenty? There’s a flowchart for that. | Lit Hub

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• An unofficial ranking of publishing colophons, those totemic images on the spines of our books that hint at the personalities within. | Lit Hub

• Top of the (New Books Tuesday) morning to you! | Lit Hub

• Jonathan Walker on JRR Tolkien’s “eucatastrophe,” or the difference between the Christ story and the Avengers Endgame. | Lit Hub Criticism

• Robert S. Levine on the failed promise of Andrew Johnson, not only a racist but “a racist who believed strongly that he cared about Black people.” | Lit Hub History

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• Honorée Fanonne Jeffers talks to Jane Ciabattari about writing place, recycling work, and the notion of the “strong Black woman.” | Lit Hub

• “Agonizing, Terrible, Possessed.” A 1966 review of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. | Book Marks

• Amber Garza celebrates the mind-bending thrillers of Sophie Hannah. | CrimeReads

• WATCH: Sergey Young on the science and ethics of living to 200 · Amy Wallen on the complicated role of memory in memoir. | Lit Hub Virtual Book Channel

• Alexandra Brodsky considers why police officers overestimate the prevalence of false rape reports. | Lit Hub

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• Louise Penny discusses crafting a mystery set in the time of COVID-19. | Lit Hub

• Merve Emre considers The Inseparables, Simone de Beauvoir’s lost novel of friendship and queer love, which “posits separateness as love’s aesthetic and ethical essence.” | The New Yorker

• “More generally, you have to bark up a lot of wrong trees to get to the right tree.” Joshua Henkin on the tricky process of character development, sprawling family stories, and teaching MFA students. | The Rumpus

• “I hope readers get a chance to think through how to tend and care for their beloveds and their communities through language as a site or as a beginning place for action.” Sreshtha Sen in conversation with Carlina Duan. | The Margins

• Read this rediscovered interview with Jorge Luis Borges. | LARB

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• “These are spy novels, but there is a strong case to be made for them being romance novels as well.” Rosa Lyster on the strange marriage of John le Carré’s George and Ann Smiley. | Gawker

• Myriam J.A. Chancy recommends books to help readers understand the complex history of Haiti. | NPR

• An upcoming book by Paul McCartney will reveal lyrics to an unrecorded Beatles song. | The Guardian

Also on Lit Hub: Meghan O’Gieblyn on consciousness and robot dogs • Why I biked around the country to humanize climate change • Read from Honorée Fanonne Jeffers’ latest novel, The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois