Lit Hub Daily: December 13, 2022

TODAY: In 1830, Danish feminist, novelist, and telegraphist Mathilde Fibiger is born.   

• Behold the 103 best book covers of the year, as picked by the experts. | Lit Hub

• Here is the best reviewed sci-fi, fantasy, and horror of 2022 (according to Book Marks). | Lit Hub

• How Paul McCartney responded to the Beatles’ slow but inevitable disintegration. (Hint: Not joyfully.) | Lit Hub Music

• Five new books to find at your local bookstore. | The Hub

• Jenni Quilter on the optimistic visions of pregnancy and motherhood in Naomi Mitchison’s Memoirs of a Spacewoman: “The epistemological shell game in this novel is that any feminism always turns out to be science.” | Lit Hub Criticism

• Jerrine Tan considers Hong Kong’s history of resistance through Louisa Lim’s Indelible City. | Lit Hub History

• Shahbaz Taseer recounts his first days of being held captive by the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. | Lit Hub Memoir

• This month’s 5 Writers, 7 Questions, No Wrong Answers features Meghan Gilliss, Lawrence Jackson, Adam Langer, Murray Lee, and Mecca Jamilah Sullivan. | Lit Hub Roundtable

• The best crime nonfiction of the year, part 1: critical and biographical. | CrimeReads

• “In the social media age, Witherspoon has actually overtaken Winfrey as publishing’s starriest powerbroker.” Ella Hunt considers the celebrity book club. | The Guardian

• Ann Patchett, Hua Hsu, Hernan Diaz, and others share highlights from their year in reading. | The Wall Street Journal

• “There is value in learning to feel as well as think, to be emotional even as we continue to pursue questions with rigor.” Imani Perry on rejecting “the gospel of objectivity.” | The Atlantic

• Bookforum is closing after 28 years of publication. | The New York Times

• “Is it time for us English majors to pick up a wrench and look for a union job? Only time will tell.” McCaffrey Blauner on the rise of AI writers. | The Nation

• Lindsey Carman Williams on the evolution of the ghost story: “The sources of fear, terror, and horror have changed over time.” | Los Angeles Review of Books

Also on Lit Hub: A conversation with Jan Morris • A poem by Vona Groarke • Read from Jamie Marina Lau’s debut novel, Gunk Baby

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