Lit Hub Daily: June 14, 2024
THE BEST OF THE LITERARY INTERNET
TODAY: In 1893, the Shelley Memorial at University College, Oxford opens. Percy Bysshe Shelley not only never graduated there, but was expelled from the college in 1811 for writing “The Necessity of Atheism.”
- “Had she lived to see her 80th birthday, Laurie Colwin would no doubt be baking her own cake.” Mia Manzulli writes in praise of the domestic sensualist. | Lit Hub Biography
- What happened to just hanging out? Alex Belth looks back on the golden age of celebrity profiles. | Lit Hub Criticism
- Griffin Dunne’s The Friday Afternoon Club, Rufi Thorpe’s Margo’s Got Money Troubles, Questlove’s Hip-Hop is History, and Paul Tremblay’s Horror Movie all feature among the best reviewed books of the week. | Book Marks
- Kristopher Jansma on starting a Ulysses reading group: “An international holiday was nice, I conceded, but what the hell is the point of a 768-page book that even the author’s closest friends needed to read with a cheat key?” | Lit Hub Criticism
- Should you call out your friend for writing a marketing newsletter with AI? Kristen Arnett answers this awkward question and more! | Lit Hub Craft
- What does Byron have in common with the Borgias? “I look back, imagining the impossible: these two together; a fusion, an exchange of power, in an act of ownership and surrender.” | Lit Hub Biography
- “Black women’s resistance came from a rejection of both sexism and racism, a radical departure from all that had been seen before.” Catherine Joy White examines Beyoncé’s “Formation” and its embodiment of Black womanhood. | Lit Hub Music
- John Copenhaver defends the queer villain: “Writing morally flawed, complicated, or even bad queer characters emerges from an instinct to humanize…” | Lit Hub Criticism
- Amanda Bellows on why “Wisconsin was paradise” to a young John Muir. | Lit Hub History
- “When the paperwork’s done, I hitch a ride to Klak in the bed of a Chevy pickup so rusty I can see the dirt road passing through the holes between my feet.” Read from Jake Maynard’s debut novel, Slime Line. | Lit Hub Fiction
- On the post-colonial literature of Filipino American novelist and poet Carlos Bulosan. | JSTOR Daily
- “I try to write from the body.” A conversation between Robert Glück and K Patrick. | Granta
- Andrew Leland explores what the Apple Vision Pro headset means to disabled users. | New York Magazine
- “The best writing about covid is flexible, figurative, and hard to pin down.” Katy Waldman considers the literature of the pandemic. | The New Yorker
- What is language to genocide? Isabella Hammad asks why so many writers treat pro-Palestine speech as a threat. | New York Review of Books
- Janet Vertesi considers the epistemology of generative AI and information as commodity. | Public Books
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