Lit Hub Daily: June 1, 2023

• HAPPY PRIDE: 37 Drag Race contestants (and RuPaul) on drag as an art form and the show’s legacy • Jess deCourcy Hinds on building an LGBTQ picture book library for her queer family • Cat Sebastian on the unexpected power of Mary Renault’s The Charioteer, the 1950s novel that presaged queer liberation • Ten LGBTQ+ authors on the books that taught them. | Lit Hub

• “It feels very existentially threatening to every form of writing to have the most lucrative and most widely recognized form of it become so tenuous.” Alexis Gunderson talks to authors on the WGA picket line. | Lit Hub

• A look at the long tradition of sexism in wine culture. | Lit Hub Food (and Drink)

• “Shall these horrors await our future generations?” How WWI inspired Black Americans to fight for dignity at home. | Lit Hub History

• Jonathan Eig’s King: A Life, Emma Cline’s The Guest, Jonny Steinberg’s Winnie and Nelson, and Abraham Verghese’s The Covenant of Water all feature among May’s Best Reviewed Books. | Book Marks

• 12 crime novels to check out this June, featuring new books from S. A. Cosby, Andrea Bartz, and more. | CrimeReads

• “When I put down the book, I felt I was waking after a vivid, portentous dream…” 5 Book Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks

• “Because of the unfortunate way suicide connects us all, we absolutely should be talking—and writing—about this much more.” Laura Paul on Vi Khi Nao’s Suicide: The Autoimmune Disorder of the Psyche. | Tarpaulin Sky Magazine

• Rebecca F. Kuange explains why she finds the idea that authors should only write characters of their own race “deeply frustrating and pretty illogical.” | The Guardian

• In conversation: Walt Whitman and Taylor Swift. | McSweeney’s

• For Pádraig Ó Tuama, “poetry is a door into many disciplines, not just a literary one.” | Times Higher Education

• “In challenging economic times, readers are turning to books as affordable.” Are books actually recession-proof? | Fortune

• Ama Ata Aidoo, one of Ghana’s great writers (and feminists), has died at age 81. | The Hub

• “We had the idea to try to collapse the space between young readers and publishers and authors…” Dave Eggers wants people to see how books get made. | New York Times

Also on Lit Hub: Joanna Biggs on reading Ferrante with other women • On Cary Grant, crop dusters, and character arcs • Read from Augusto Higa Oshiro’s newly translated novel, The Enlightenment of Katzuo Nakamatsu (tr. Jennifer Shyue).