Lit Hub Daily: February 5, 2019

• “Like most works of art, doughnuts are defined by an absence.” Elizabeth McCracken’s unified theory of the doughnut. | Lit Hub
• Suspend any genre snobbery you might have and read these ten works of literary fantasy. | Lit Hub
• “You can’t discuss Palestinian food without talking about the Occupation.” Yasmin Khan on the joys of Palestinian cuisine. | Lit Hub
• “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.” A poem by Morgan Parker from her new collection Magical Negro. | Lit Hub
• “Swedish was technically my first language, but English is the language in which I grew up.” Ten thoughts on having your novel translated into your native tongue. | Lit Hub
• Where Reasons End author Yiyun Li on five novels about children who awed her, from Harriet Said to The Children of Dynmouth. | Book Marks
• Lori Feathers on the oeuvre of Marlon James, from John Crow’s Devil to Black Leopard, Red Wolf. | Book Marks
• Michelle Frances rounds up 8 thrillers featuring conduct unbecoming to a professional setting (to say the least). | CrimeReads
• “I knew I’d get this call. I didn’t know if it would be you or the F.B.I.” The wild exposé of best-selling thriller writer Dan Mallory (aka A. J. Finn) that everyone you know is talking about. The year of the grifter is eternal, my friends. | The New Yorker
• William James was saved by the writing of Charles Renouvier; Alice James was saved by her own. On the philosopher, his sister, and the power of belief (or lack thereof). | Lapham’s Quarterly
• Mira Jacob’s forthcoming graphic memoir Good Talk will be a television show, to be written by Jacob and executive produced by Eddie Huang. | Deadline
• “The everything novel I want to read is in my mind, of course, not in any of the world’s great libraries, but that doesn’t mean I will stop looking for it.” On Finnegan’s Wake and the search for the “everything novel.” | 3 Quarks
• “I’m sure but if I didn’t take a chance I’d only ever be able to write novels about mixed-race girls growing up in Willesden.” Zadie Smith on the problem with collective identities. | The Guardian
• “With autism there is often, not metaphorically but literally, a lack of voice”: Why has autism so often been used as little more than a literary device? | The New York Times
• On the collected short stories of Brazilian author Machado de Assis. | The New Republic

Also on Lit Hub: Karen Thompson Walker on So Many Damn Books • Classic book games on Literary Disco • Mapping addiction, from Cocteau to Burroughs • Gabrielle Bellot on Marianne Moore, defiant poet of complexity • Read from Notes From a Black Woman’s Diary