Lit Hub Daily: December 10, 2018

• ‘Tis the season to reflect on news cycles passed! All this week, we’re counting down the 50 most important literary news stories of the year. | Lit Hub
• “What a treat! What a gig!” Sarahmay Wilkinson on the joys of designing the cover for a debut writer’s book. | Lit Hub
• A view from inside the warehouse: the novelist who works as a “seasonal associate” at Amazon. | Lit Hub
• From magazine writer to essayist: James Baldwin’s dispatches from the heart of the Civil Rights movement. | Lit Hub
• Five great books you might have missed in November, from a Rust Belt tragedy to a very loyal snake. | Lit Hub
• Dunking on Sean Penn, immolating James Frey, savaging Sean Spicer, and more of the Most Scathing Reviews of 2018. | Book Marks
• A holiday gift guide for the true-crime obsessed and the morbidly inclined, from true crime expert Tori Telfer. | CrimeReads
• “Is it really okay to talk about art right now? To leave the real and broken world behind and talk about fictional ones?” Rebecca Makkai on the role of literature in a world on fire. | Electric Literature
• “I couldn’t finish Fifty Shades of Grey. Are straight women really having such terrible sex and terrible lives?” Jeanette Winterson on the books in her life. | The Guardian
• Ernest Hemingway: fish scaler. Edgar Allan Poe: feathers (black). If you’ve ever wondered what famous authors’ ASMR props would be, here are some very good guesses. | McSweeney’s
• “He’s an ideal, and in the play we see the cost.” Jeff Daniels on playing Atticus Finch on Broadway. | Deadline
• Read a new (and characteristically brilliant) short story by Joy Williams. | The New Yorker
• On the state of the gay leftist movement in America. | The Point
• In the spirit of revolution, two political letters on uprisings in present-day France. | The New Inquiry

Also on Lit Hub: The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize shortlisters on their early literary loves • 9 novels that tap into the myth of “Americana” • Read a story by Faruk Šehić, from the new issue of AGNI