Lit Hub Daily: January 18, 2023

• In guns we trust: Paul Auster asks why America is the most violent country in the Western world. | Lit Hub Politics    

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• Why Janet Malcom, after years of aversion to writing about herself, finally did: “She knew better than most that the only thing scarier than writing about oneself is letting someone else wrest control of the narrative.” | Lit Hub Criticism

• “I was competitive with men. I wanted their freedom.” Anne Waldman recounts her time at Bennington College. | Lit Hub Memoir

• What koalas can teach us about solitude and companionship. | Lit Hub Nature

• Diagnosing King Tut, thousands of years after his death. | Lit Hub History

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• “What makes a potential wartime slogan?” Maria Sonevytsky considers the phrase “Good evening, we are from Ukraine.” | Los Angeles Review of Books

• Dan Kois considers the joy of Laurie Colwin: “Colwin doesn’t make it as difficult as possible for her characters. She loves them and rewards them with happy lives.” | The Washington Post

• “Literature departments seem to provide a haven for studying books, but they may have painted themselves into a corner.” Merve Emre on academia and literary criticism. | The New Yorker

• Ellen Barry speaks to Susan Meachen, the romance writer who faked her own death. | The New York Times

• A second Colorado library has been temporarily closed due to meth contamination. | The Wall Street Journal

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• “To my surprise, the first half of Spare turns out to be a fascinating literary venture.” Laura Miller makes the case for Prince Harry’s memoir as good literature. | Slate

• Want to stay up to date on the HarperCollins Union strike? There’s a newsletter for that! | HarperCollins Union

Also on Lit Hub: Daniel Torday on why he didn’t write an acknowledgements page • Tsitsi Dangarembga on writing against empire • Read from Matthew Salesses’s latest novel, A Sense of Wonder