Lit Hub Daily: December 12, 2023

• “Each of these portraits is, as advertised and expected, profoundly ‘humane.’” Gideon Lewis-Kraus recommends Nathan Thrall’s A Day in the Life of Abed Salama. | Lit Hub Criticism

• The 138 best book covers of 2023, as chosen by some of the industry’s best book cover designers. | Lit Hub Design

• “Each of these portraits is, as advertised and expected, profoundly ‘humane.’” Gideon Lewis-Kraus recommends Nathan Thrall’s A Day in the Life of Abed Salama. | Lit Hub Criticism

• The latest edition of Lit Hub Asks: 5 Authors, 7 Questions, No Wrong Answers features Ramona Ausubel, Christine Coulson, Elizabeth McKenzie, Jade Song, and Theodore Wheeler. | Lit Hub Questionnaire

• 11 new books to brighten up your week. | The Hub

• “As long as toxic masculinity exists, ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ will be there to help with the detox.” How The Cure Helped mainstream male emotion. | Lit Hub Music

• “I’d never really thought about the fact that my favorite restaurants, as a child, as a teenager, as an adult returning to Mississippi, nearly all served gas.” Kiese Laymon writes a love letter to gas station restaurants. | The Bitter Southerner

• Jennifer Finney Boylan is the new president of PEN America. | New York Times

• “Frost is a poet of contradictions, complexities, and ambivalences—as all great poets are.” Tyler Malone on Robert Frost and newness. | Poetry

• Laura Miller considers Liz Cheney’s memoir. | Slate

Also on Lit Hub: Reading Naomi Klein’s Doppelgänger (as another Naomi) • How a decade in women’s media  influenced Gabrielle Korn’s novel • Why women’s contributions to the Italian Renaissance matter