Lit Hub Daily: December 19, 2022

• Here are the Ultimate Best Books of 2022, AKA the annual list of lists. | Lit Hub

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• Why Ivan Turgenev is the Russian master of Russian masters (and why the much maligned Constance Garnett is his best translator). | Lit Hub Criticism

• 88 Freeman’s contributors on the books they loved in 2022. | Lit Hub

• Emma Smith looks at “bibliomania” in the early 20th century—and the story of one rare book collector aboard the Titanic. | Lit Hub History

• How the beauty of Florence inspired a young John Singer Sargent. | Lit Hub Art

• Emma Cline and Peter Orner discuss the strangeness of memory and the only one true ending. | Lit Hub In Conversation

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• Merve Emre on Gerald Murnane, Maggie Doherty on Cormac McCarthy, and more of the 10 best book reviews of 2022 (according to Book Marks). | Lit Hub

• A woman found a homemade Mother’s Day card in a used copy of an Agatha Christie novel. Can you help get it to its rightful owner? | The New York Times

• “[Dennis] Johnson sees the work as a public good—to solidify the public record in a way that’s more accessible.” Andrew Limbong on the race to publish the January 6th report in book form.  | NPR

• Tobias Carroll and Cat Fitzpatrick on the intersection of voice, form, and the internet: “Once you’ve set up this elaborate system of constraints, then what you have to do is dance through it.” | Vol. 1 Brooklyn

• Georgie Newson explores the world of unlicensed e-book databases, or “shadow libraries.” | London Review of Books

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• “Narrators can persuasively embody characters who look nothing like them—but it takes a special kind of work.” Daniel A. Gross profiles prolific audiobook narrator and “vocal chameleon” Robin Miles. | The New Yorker

• Was 2022 the year of Medieval erotics? | Hazlitt

• “Reading the early works of established, revered writers always reminds me of looking at a baby’s face.” Lynn Steger Strong on Marguerite Duras and rethinking failure. | The Atlantic

Also on Lit Hub: Writers recommend their favorite holiday movies • Reclaiming The L Word’s Jenny Schecter as a writerly anti-hero • Meet the nonconformist designer who revolutionized 60s fashion