Lit Hub Daily: January 31, 2023

• “Writers are read for how they write, not what they write about.” Henry Louis Gates Jr. on what makes a “classic” African American text. | Lit Hub Criticism

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• Kelly Link in praise of Ursula K. Le Guin’s genuine magic: “The world is always ending, Le Guin seems to say, but it’s always beginning, too.” | Lit Hub Criticism

• Iona Glen considers the Brontë sisterhood onscreen—and what Frances O’Connor’s new addition blatantly disregards. | Lit Hub Film & TV

• The 11 Best Book Covers of January are fresh, cheeky, and mushroom-forward—which bodes well for the year, right? RIGHT? | Lit Hub Design

• The Month in Literary Listening: AudioFile’s Best Audiobooks of January. | Book Marks

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• Which crime shows should you watch in February? Dwyer Murphy has some suggestions. | CrimeReads

• John Rieder considers Karel Čapek’s 1936 novel War with the Newts, “one of the greatest pieces of science fiction of the 20th century.” | MITP Reader

• “There’s never been a better time to be caught Reading While Hot.” Samantha Leach considers the reading habits of celebrities. | Bustle

• “Perhaps this is the job of the poet laureate—proving the impossible. Articulating the unknown.” Carmen Maria Machado profiles Ada Limón. | ELLE

• New indie press alert: Tonight I’m Someone Else author Chelsea Hodson has launched Rose Books. | Publishers Weekly

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• Read two previously unpublished poems by David Berman. | Post45

• “He was rewarded for my labour. He did not cite me. He did not send the people who were moved by his words back to their source, which was me.” Joseph Earp on a betrayal by his mentor, John Hughes. | The Guardian

Also on Lit Hub: Dawn Raffel on constructing cities, real and imagined • A reading list of the Caribbean • Read from Geetanjali Shree’s newly translated novel, Tomb of Sand (tr. Daisy Rockwell)