Lit Hub Daily: December 16, 2020
THE BEST OF THE LITERARY INTERNET
TODAY: In 1928, Philip K. Dick is born.
- “Burroughs loathed the school’s dull chores, cruel classmates, and a headmaster who enjoyed making the students strip naked for him.” Honestly, what’s not to loathe? Ken Layne on the desertscapes of a young William Burroughs. | Lit Hub Biography
- Books by Isabel Wilkerson, Zadie Smith, Barack Obama, and Helen Macdonald all feature among the Best Reviewed Nonfiction of 2020. | Lit Hub, Book Marks
- The best crime and mystery debuts of 2020. | CrimeReads
- “The commercial press seems determined to forget that a major portion of journalism’s mission is to hold a mirror to our uglier selves.” On the tireless work of the Censorship Project, who spotlight important underreported stories. | Lit Hub Politics
- “The alternative consumption we need to commit to is not a form of belt tightening or a loss of pleasure. On the contrary, it actually proves more pleasurable.” [Leans in closer.] A conversation between Kate Soper and Kate Aronoff. | Lit Hub Climate Change
- The Bookstore at the End of the World—a collective of some of the finest unemployed and underemployed booksellers there are—recommend their favorite books of the year. | Lit Hub
- “‘I wanted to tell you,’ he continued, ‘that the whole audience today will be street people.’” Eduardo Halfon, on the most unique reading he’s ever given. | Lit Hub
- “As Woolf knew, illness, like trauma, lingers, even after we think we’ve recovered.” Gabrielle Bellot on Virginia Woolf’s interpretations of malady, and the complexities of writing through a pandemic. | Lit Hub
- Larry Watson talks writerly superstition, the modern western, and seeing his novel, Let Him Go, adapted to the big screen. | Lit Hub
- “It scared the [expletive] out of a lot of kids at that time.” Stephen King ranks the best and worst adaptations of his own books. | The New York Times
- “She is the bar I strive to attain as well as a model of perseverance in a world of fools.” Writers pay tribute to Edna O’Brien on her 90th birthday. | Irish Times
- “A brilliant light, off and on the page.” Remembering Anthony Veasna So, who died last week at age 28. | Los Angeles Times
- These books can help us make sense of a world in which artificial intelligence is a growing force. | WIRED
- On the heyday of the penny press and the unique relationship the industry built between writers and readers. | New York Review of Books
- “We three sisters were beginning a long-awaited, long-planned distribution of our beloved childhood library.” On the joy of reliving a childhood bookshelf. | Verily Mag
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