Lit Hub Daily: July 22, 2020

• “If the pandemic were a war, then we are losing it, if it isn’t lost already.” Siri Hustvedt, in contemplation of a photograph by Rachel Cobb, on what the world values when it’s falling apart. | Lit Hub Politics
• “We have a natural inclination to think of ourselves—our past, present, and future—as an ongoing story.” Frank Tallis takes the anthropological view of storytelling. | Lit Hub
• A genealogy of twins: Larry Watson on identity, projected lives, and arriving at the crux of a story. | Lit Hub
• Oliver Stone reflects on bringing the spirit of Homer’s epics to the screen in Platoon. | Lit Hub
• Tobias Carroll: How John Steinbeck’s final novel grappled with immigration and morality. | Lit Hub
• Writer and poet Mosab Abu Tolas talks to Philip Metres about life in Gaza and creating the Edward Said Library. | Lit Hub
• “In our own grief-ridden time, we may never need O’Farrell’s art more”: Lori Feathers on the novels of Maggie O’Farrell. | Book Marks
• Looking for your next binge-read? The CrimeReads editors recommend 10 iconic series of the 1970s. | CrimeReads
• In college, Jay Parini took an unexpected road trip in the Scottish Highlands with a talkative, elderly man. Not his grandfather, but Jorge Luis Borges. | The Daily Beast
• “The feelings are a part of it.” Naima Coster on writing, parenting and trusting her gut—or not trusting her gut, and writing anyway. | The Cut
• “Stuck Rubber Baby is a story, but it’s also a history—or perhaps more accurately a story about how history happens, one person at a time.” Alison Bechdel on Howard Cruse’s graphic novel about homophobia and racism in the Jim Crow South. | Slate
• COVID-19’s impact on the arts is “an indictment of a precarious arts culture that can only function when everyone is well and working.” | The Guardian
• “Literature and dialogue cannot supplant restorative social policies and laws, organizational change, and structural redress.” Saida Grundy on why anti-racism books won’t fix America. | The Atlantic
• The shortlisted nominees for this year’s Caine Prize speak on literary awards and the African authors they are reading now. | African Arguments
• “The book inspired something more akin to faith than admiration or love. People hadn’t just read the book; they had converted or pledged allegiance to it.” When Geoff Dyer read Lonesome Dove. | TLS

Also on Lit Hub: Remembering Australian novelist Elizabeth Harrower • A love letter to developmental editors • Read an excerpt from Adam Wilson’s novel Sensation Machines.