Lit Hub Daily: July 29, 2021

• Jodhpurs, ponytails, and 14-karat charm bracelets: Alex Marzano-Lesnevich reflects on navigating the starkly gendered world of horseback riding. | Lit Hub

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• Come for the Dev Patel thirst-traps, stay for the “unsettling, glorious” interpretation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. | Lit Hub Film

• Why write climate crisis stories for kids? Authors weigh in on hope, reality, and where the power lies. | Lit Hub Climate Change

• “Me and my beloved Frédéric.” How discovering Chopin saved American Beauty actor Mena Suvari. | Lit Hub Memoir

• Bo McMillan considers gentrification narratives by white authors, which “fuel many of the exclusionary forces they claim to want removed.” | Lit Hub

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• Hua Hsu on Anthony Veasna So’s Afterparties, Alan Cumming on Stephen Sondheim, Jo Livingstone on Shirley Jackson’s letters, and more of the Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks

• Olivia Rutigliano takes a moment to tell you about Sneakers, the most charming, baffling caper flick of the 90s. | CrimeReads

• A conversation about comics with Kristen Radtke, Mira Jacob, and Malaka Gharib · Patrick Wyman on the “great divergence” between Western Europe and the rest of the globe. | Lit Hub Virtual Book Channel

• “To have a house means that you have a space in which you can retreat from society and create your own monastery or convent.” Sandra Cisneros on the importance of having a space of one’s own. | NPR Code Switch

• Ilan Stavans and Priyanka Champaneri discuss the symbolism, cultural rituals, and anxieties associated with death. | Los Angeles Review of Books

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• On the history of the book blurb. | Book Riot

• “We offer great rewards to a man who can tame a tiger … Yet we neglect women who have spent years and years nourishing and educating children.” On the writings of François Poulain, a 17th-century (feminist) priest. | The Atlantic

• Emily Zarevich investigates the truths and myths behind Emily Brontë’s lost second novel. | JSTOR Daily

• “I have always felt like an outsider to much of the culture I’ve loved.” Hanif Abdurraqib talks about writing from the Midwest. | Indianapolis Monthly

• French teenagers are buying comic books in huge numbers after receiving funds from the government for cultural purchases. | The New York Times

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Also on Lit Hub: Sally Cabot Gunning on the creative relationship between writers and visual artists • A poem by Georges Schehadé, translated by Austin Carder • Read from Ha Jin’s latest novel, A Song Everlasting