Lit Hub Daily: January 2, 2018

• Eight ways of looking at Samuel Beckett: J.M. Coetzee imagines Kafka the Professor, and Beckett on a South African beach. | Literary  Hub
• How to dig a hole: on the fine art of digging (and other bits of very old wisdom). | Literary  Hub
• One man’s escape from North Korea: Masaji Ishikawa flees totalitarianism under the cover of night. | Literary  Hub
• “It is a world which, like that of Sinclair Lewis’ It Can’t Happen Here, is far more likely to come into being than the various world of many other imaginative writers.” A 1953 review of Fahrenheit 451. | Book Marks
• Perhaps the future was the only place left to escape from the present: On Toward the Year 2018, a 1968 book that imagined our current year. | The New Yorker
• And Other Stories, Europa Editions, and other indie presses share their favorite books of 2017. | The Guardian
• Millenial purple, a lovely tribute to our troubled literary great-grandpa, and more: A tribute to the best book designers of the year. | Paper Darts
• “What’s exciting to me is the unexpected combinations, say of poetry and violence, or action and humor.” An interview with Ivy Pochoda. | Los Angeles Review of Books
• “I am contributing to the historical record whether I like it or not, whether I deserve to or not. It’s a daunting thought.” On being a history book writer for hire. | The Rumpus
• David Bowie’s son has launched an informal book club that will read the renowned bibliophile’s favorite titles. | Open Culture

Also on Literary Hub: Being haunted by the ghosts of Henry James and Jean Rhys · Five books making news this week: Dave Eggers, Myriam Gurba, Yan Lianke and more · Read from Craig Cliff’s new novel, The Mannequin Makers