Lit Hub Daily: June 14, 2023

• Remembering the Great American Writer Cormac McCarthy, who died yesterday at 89. | Lit Hub

• “I wish I could say my leg fought in a war, or had a drug problem, or escaped a polygamist cult, or smoked cigarettes with Gertrude Stein in Paris.” Greg Marshall considers his memoir-worthy leg. | Lit Hub

• Tania James recommends the best rule-breaking characters in fiction. | Lit Hub

• “How can we live a satisfying life without a bucket list, more pins in the world map, more likes for our vacation pictures?” Amy Benson wrestles with the devastating consequences of air travel. | Lit Hub Travel

• Finn Murphy recounts chasing his Big American Dream: growing hemp (and getting rich). | Lit Hub

• Alaya Dawn Johnson on responding to trauma by writing science fiction: “If I could not trust my senses, I decided from a young age that I could at least trust my imagination.” | Lit Hub Memoir

• “For Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, style was secondary to his politics. His work attacked western religion and education, language and the betrayal of Kenya by the post-independence leadership.” Carey Baraka profiles a giant of African literature. | The Guardian

• If the library is “the last public space,” what does that mean for librarians? | The Walrus

• Amy Brady reveals ten facts about ice that you (probably) didn’t know. | Orion

• “I felt like I was in [a show] like The Newsroom.” Alexis Gunderson reports on the race to turn the Jan. 6th report into an audiobook… in 26 hours. | LA Times

• Honestly thought she already had one but… Sarah Jessica Parker has launched a new eponymous imprint! | Vanity Fair

• Here is your cheat-sheet for the writing of the late, great Cormac McCarthy. | Washington Post

Also on Lit Hub: On the joy of literary acceptance—and the freedom of rejection • On the mental health fallout from WWI • Read from Katherine Lin’s debut novel, You Can’t Stay Here Forever