Lit Hub Daily: July 20, 2021

• Sara Martin on replacing the dead-end question “How much of the book is true?” with a far more interesting one: “How much of your life has been determined by fiction?” | Lit Hub

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• “The rheumatologist commented, This doesn’t make sense, as in I’ve never before heard the story of this pain.” Rachel Yoder on navigating chronic pain through storytelling. | Lit Hub

• Dispatches from New Books Tuesday, the land of joy and plenty. | The Hub

• On the Gilded Age women “sex radicals” who fought back against Anthony Comstock (by naming a vaginal douche after him, for starters). | Lit Hub History

• Bex O’Brian in praise of the mother who “barely raised” her. | Lit Hub Memoir

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• “I wish I could tell my younger self that in middle age I’d become the unlikely defender of Playboy Bunnies.” Christina Clancy considers what we get wrong about sexual politics. | Lit Hub

• On the undeniable impact of the “Dear America” series and how the books helped children understand history. | Refinery29

• “I hate to tell you this, but this is not going to be the end of Trump books, no matter what.” Alex Shephard looks at the (seemingly endless) Trump era of book publishing. | New York Magazine

• Mona Awad on a cherished evening tradition passed down by her mother. | T Magazine

• “Lately, I’ve been thinking that what drives so much of the anger and antagonism online is our helplessness offline.” Roxane Gay on the unpleasant side of social media engagement. | New York Times

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• Scribd, a platform for e-books, podcasts, and audiobooks, is looking to go public (with a $1 billion valuation). | Bloomberg

• Inside the life and mind of Ishmael Reed, “American literature’s most fearless satirist.” | The New Yorker

Also on Lit Hub: Thad Ziolkowsk on returning to New York’s waves on September 12, 2001 • A new poem by Maureen N. McLane • Read from Omar El Akkad’s latest novel, What Strange Paradise