Lit Hub Daily: July 27, 2023

• “It would be more noble to say that I smuggled drugs out of economic desperation, but that’s not true. I liked the rush.” Former war correspondent John Koopman on how he became a modern bootlegger. | Lit Hub Memoir

• On W.E.B. Du Bois’ path toward secular humanism. | Lit Hub Religion

• Greggor Mattson and Krista Burton discuss what they observed (and what they ordered) on their respective cross-country gay bar pilgrimages. | Lit Hub

• What translator Emilie Moorhouse is reading now and next, from Octavia Butler to Joshua Whitehead. | Lit Hub Annotated Nightstand

• July’s best book covers are a series of bangers. | Lit Hub Design

• “I went through this, she says, so maybe you won’t have to.” 5 Book Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks

• Reminder: don’t review books you haven’t read. (Or, why Goodreads is garbage.) | The Atlantic

• “I don’t want to serve my home on a platter, the bones to be picked clean and forgotten about until it’s burped back up a bit later.” Christine Kandic Torres on Queens and its “exotic” food. | Electric Lit

• Nilanjana Roy makes the case for public reading as a social activity. | Financial Times

• Martin Dolan considers The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom as ecofiction. | LARB

• “What does anyone gain from consuming near-identical stories over and over?” Sarah Manavis on the problem with TikTok’s new book publishing venture. | The New Statesman

Also on Lit Hub: Crafting fiction from family heirlooms • How my library patrons helped me finish my novel • Read from Colin Walsh’s debut novel, Kala