Lit Hub Daily: February 6, 2026
THE BEST OF THE LITERARY INTERNET
TODAY: In 1995, James Merrill dies.
- LETTERS FROM MINNESOTA: Laurie Hertzel on finding solidarity amidst the tear gas • Kaia Preus on why there isn’t time for mom guilt. | Lit Hub Politics
- Sasha Han talks to Maggie O’Farrell, the author of Hamnet, about grief, Shakespeare, and adapting her novel to the screen. | Lit Hub In Conversation
- Gioia Woods reflects on the legacy of Lawrence Ferlinghetti and City Lights. | Lit Hub Bookstores
- Ahndraya Parlato explores gendered aging and idealized beauty through photography and letters. | Lit Hub Art
- Nancy Reddy researches beyond the archives by reading sideways. | Lit Hub Craft
- Cristina Rivera Garza’s Autobiography of Cotton, Yi-Ling Liu’s The Wall Dancers, and Sarah Bruni’s Mass Mothering all feature among the best reviewed books of the week. | Book Marks
- “Nothing compared to Vietnam when showcasing Black bravery, strength, and even political expression in the war zones of Southeast Asia.” Wil Haygood remembers the experiences of Black Vietnam veterans. | Lit Hub History
- Khameer Kidia explores the impact of debt as a burden of money (and health). | Lit Hub Health
- “The sound of hooves beating on the sandy ground comes first. Then the breathing, strained and short-winded. Panting. A snort.” Read from Cristina Rivera Garza’s novel Autobiography of Cotton, translated by Christina MacSweeney. | Lit Hub Fiction
- “Morrison makes no bones about making jest of incest, lynching, murder, even infanticide in many of her works.” On the humor of Toni Morrison. | New York Review of Books
- Clyde W. Barrow on reading C. Wright Mills in the age of Trump. | Jacobin
- Hiromitsu Koiso on translating Anne Carson and Teju Cole into Japanese. | Asymptote
- “Our lack of knowledge about Shakespeare as a man, and our distance from his world, make it easier for us to fill his spaces with our own imaginings.” On The Bard’s endless cycle of death and rebirth. | The Baffler
- Antonio Melechi explores the boundary between wakefulness and sleep. | The MIT Press Reader
- Harris Solomon talks to Edna Bonhomme, author of A History of the World in Six Plagues, about the history and future of health. | Public Books
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