Lit Hub Daily: July 1, 2021

• In the latest installment of The Longest Year: 2020+, Isadora Kosofsky documents an LA Covid ward, and Suzanne Koven reflects on treating patients in another ward across the country. | Lit Hub Photography

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• Humans have shaped the evolution of wild animals—but that’s not wholly a bad thing, writes Emma Marris. | Lit Hub Nature

• The 13 best book covers of June get splashy. | Lit Hub

• Debra Dean considers the complicated task of the living biographer and the therapeutic effects of telling our stories. | Lit Hub Biography

• How Kurt Cobain’s favorite novel made its way onto Nirvana’s final album: Nathan Dunne on the seductive power of Patrick Süskind’s Perfume. | Lit Hub Music

• “If Bringing Up Baby isn’t a work of towering art, then neither is Guernica or Gravity’s Rainbow.” Jason Guriel on the comedic brilliance of the 1938 screwball comedy, which is headed to the Criterion Collection. | Lit Hub Film

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• Stephen Graham Jones talks about horror writing and coding Native characters at the Border Crossings’ ORIGINS Festival. | Lit Hub Virtual Book Channel

• Molly Aitkins on the strange synchronicities of writing a novel. | Lit Hub

• Dwight Garner on Quentin Tarantino, Parul Sehgal on Dana Spiotta, Noaise Dolan on Lisa Taddeo, and more of the Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks

• WATCH: Victoria James on how to make the wine industry a better place. | Lit Hub Virtual Book Channel

• “Like almost all examples of cancel culture run amok, it’s mostly an example of Twitter run amok.” Emily VanDerWerff on the real-world consequences of internet ire for a trans sci-fi writer. | Vox

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• Tolkien’s classic romance: On queer readings of The Lord of the Rings. | Polygon

• “Getting sober required that I narrate my personal history for myself, and the resulting understanding made White Magic possible.” Elissa Washuta discusses her process, the power of storytelling, and writing about trauma. | Bitch Media

• How Purple Rain depicted the psychological lives of Black men and paved the way for filmmakers like Spike Lee. | Bright Wall/Dark Room

• Benjamin Dreyer on the “familiar domestic comfort” of the unsung film adaptation of Neil Simon’s The Prisoner of Second Avenue. | The Current

• The first wave of post-Trump books has arrived. What are they telling us? | NPR

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• “After I publish a book I am so emptied out of it, outside of it, I am not sure I even can comment on it.” Rachael Nevins on authorship, persona, and reading Kate Zambreno. | Ploughshares

Also on Lit Hub: Dr. Inger Burnett-Zeigler recommends novels about the inner lives on Black women • John Brandon on the origins of his Florida Man novel • Read a story from Jeffrey Ford’s latest collection, Big Dark Hole