Lit Hub Daily: July 13, 2021

• “A part of me still believes it isn’t possible to be a brown writer and also be funny and also be taken seriously. But I’ve taken the leap and put my name on this book.” Tahmima Anam on the serious business of being funny. | Lit Hub

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• Searching for Moby-Dick (and the elusive truths of America’s pastime): Rick White goes deep on Bill James, Herman Melville, and the whaleness of Whiteyball. | Lit Hub Criticism

• Happy New Books Tuesday, the greatest day of every week. | Lit Hub

• After growing up between two countries, Sunjeev Sahota asks if belonging is only for the privileged. | Lit Hub

• Savala Nolan reflects on the life-threatening experience of giving birth as a Black woman in America. | Lit Hub Memoir

• Dana Spiotta talks to Jane Ciabattari about narrative shape, James Joyce, and the cliché of the midlife woman. | Lit Hub

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• This month’s 5 Authors, 7 Questions, No Wrong Answers features Anuk Arudpragasam, Elizabeth Gonzalez James, Elizabeth Greenwood, Kristen Radtke, and Caki Wilkinson. | Lit Hub

• “A great rumbling farce of Falstaffian dimensions.” Check out this 1980 review of John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces. | Book Marks

• Emily Arsenault on 80s poltergeists and adolescent anger. | CrimeReads

• “If I can decide that Jane Eyre is sacred, that means it is the actions I take that will make it so.” Vanessa Zoltan on reading Jane Eyre as a sacred text. | The Paris Review

• Make Me Over: How the history of makeup has informed the stereotypes and struggles that modern women encounter. | NPR All Things Considered

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• Rethinking the purpose and cultural value of almanacs. | LARB

• Diane Johnson talks about her eleventh novel and storied career path. | Kirkus

• “My sweetheart had always wanted to see her name in the sky.” Melissa Febos tells the story of her unexpected grand gesture. | Elle

• Katie Kitamura discusses performance, inertia, and forgoing catharsis. | Vulture

• “In addition to making me want to become a writer, my time in France also taught me to think about myself, as an Asian, in a different way.” David Hoon Kim considers place, language, and friendship. | NYRB

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Also on Lit Hub: Helen Ellis on being the only lady at the poker table • Read from Kelly McClorey’s debut novel, Nobody, Somebody, Anybody