Lit Hub Daily: February 4, 2021

• What makes a political novel last? Tobias Carroll on when fury meets polity. | Lit Hub Criticism
• Non-harsh writing advice from K Chess: when you’re stuck on your book, try writing another one inside of it. | Lit Hub Craft
• “If you want to know where the action is, listen for the sound of police helicopters.” Elissa Schappell reflects on Rachel Cobb’s photographs of NYC in 2020. | Lit Hub
• Avni Doshi recommends nine books that capture the full complexity of motherhood. | Lit Hub Reading Lists
• Courtney Maum finally embraces dancing, during pregnancy and beyond. | Lit Hub Memoir
• 25+ new crime and mystery novels from Black writers to read all year long. | CrimeReads
• The verdicts on new novels by David Duchovny, Lauren Oyler, and Chang-rae Lee feature among the Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks
• The cop-free library movement is working to end contracts between libraries and local police forces. | Teen Vogue
• In need of a little inspiration for these “deeply uncertain and circumscribed times”? Read Jane Austen. | BBC
• “The publishing industry has been only too happy to give shelter to those whom Trump has unleashed from his side.” Cultural critics and observers prematurely diagnose the cultural impact of the Trump presidency. | The Drift
• What do sestinas and literary translation have in common? They’re both “marked by obsession, intimacy, and perseverance.” | Words Without Borders
• “I have never met a lonelier person than someone suffering with pain.” One physician’s approach to the nebulousness of chronic pain. | Lit Hub Health
• Chris Kraus recommends “books that the writer had to complete before going on.” | Document Journal
• “If the continuation of violence depends on silence and impunity, Rivera Garza believes that writing can throw a wrench in that machine.” How Cristina Rivera Garza explores the connection between violence and language. | The Nation
• “It is an enterprise of solid gold.” On that lucrative 18th century side-hustle—pirating Voltaire. | Lapham’s Quarterly

Also on Lit Hub: Lauren Marino draws the spaces of Virginia Woolf, Toni Morrison, and others • Thomas C. Holt recounts the Civil Rights rebellion of Carrie Lee Fitzgerald • Read from Alison Wisdom’s debut novel, We Can Only Save Ourselves