Lit Hub Daily: June 2, 2022

• How James Baldwin’s singular children’s book, Little Man, Little Man, “answers to a higher calling.” | Lit Hub

  Article continues after advertisement

• Jean Hanff Korelitz enthuses about fiction and the Hill Cumorah Pageant… obviously. | Lit Hub Questionnaire

• “If American conscience were only half alive… a scream of horror, shame and indignation would rise to heaven wherever your pamphlet shall be read.” On Ida B. Wells’ anti-lynching exposés. | Lit Hub History

• “Like motherhood, translation is the beginning of a story, a new version of an old self.” Malwina Gudowska considers Linea Nigra. | Lit Hub Translation

• Against sissy-shaming: Julia Serano on the “mess of mixed messages” that is male socialization. | Lit Hub

• “I see too much of American poetics as largely a managerial endeavor.” A dialogue between Rodrigo Toscano and Sandra Simonds. | Lit Hub Poetry

• Data is making early American slavery easier to measure—yet “more difficult to comprehend.” | Lit Hub History

• Kelly Lytle Hernández traces the road to revolution in turn-of-the-century Mexico. | Lit Hub History

• Hilton Als on Thom Gunn, Ben Ehrenreich on Barry Lopez, Laura Miller on Kellyanne Conway, and more of the Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks

• Poets laureate, librarians, and bookstore owners recommend what to read next, by state. | NPR

• “I didn’t write Nevada in a way I could comprehend its impact outside of queer and trans people in my community.” Casey Plett interviews Imogen Binnie about her newly republished novel. | Harper’s Bazaar

• Sierra Crane Murdoch remembers Barry Lopez, and “a question calling from the dark, turning toward the light.” | The Paris Review

• Ross Gay, Frank Guridy, and Deborah Paredez discuss poetry, basketball, and writing about Black life. | Public Books

• Bo Seo lists the books that taught him the value of debate. | The Atlantic

• “For me, euphoria is simply the act of waking up, making my coffee, and sitting down with a book and being able to read.” Elliot Page recommends the books that have moved him recently. | Esquire

• How Florence + The Machine inspired Akwaeke Emezi’s new novel. | ELLE

Also on Lit Hub: The centuries-long struggle of women in Rocco and His Brothers • In the opioid epidemic, prosecutions don’t always help victims • Read a story from Jessica Treadway’s new collection, Infinite Dimensions