Lit Hub Daily: June 24, 2024
THE BEST OF THE LITERARY INTERNET
TODAY: In 1947, Kenneth Arnold claims to have seen nine flying saucers near Mount Rainier, Washington, prompting a huge amount of enthusiasm in science fiction writers and scientists.
- Elif Shafak on why George Orwell’s 1984 remains more relevant than ever. | Lit Hub Criticism
- Merle Hoffman recommends Laura Kaplan, Dorothy Roberts, Rickie Solinger, and more readings on reproductive justice. | Lit Hub Reading Lists
- “I wanted the guests to see that I had chosen this. I was not some hectored maiden but entirely in control of my destiny.” On reading Jill Ciment’s Consent as a former teenage bride. | Lit Hub Memoir
- What does game theory have to do with organ donation? “With the right incentives—like winning a kidney for a loved one in need— people happily donate to strangers.” | Lit Hub Science
- “It was the hobbits’ down-to-earthiness and common humanity that grounded the rather high-flown Elvish world of the Silmarillion and made it accessible.” Verlyn Flieger reflects on how J. R. R. Tolkien shaped modern fantasy. | Lit Hub Criticism
- Héctor Abad remembers Victoria Amelina, a rising star of Ukrainian literature killed by Putin’s war. | Lit Hub Memoir
- “In her body of work, Messud returns repeatedly to the question of what a person might stand to gain from shedding or abiding by family conventions.” Rafaela Bassili on Claire Messud’s melodramas. | Lit Hub Criticism
- Caitlin Shetterly on how famous writers conquered writers’ block and what finally worked for her: “…that sweet Pavlovian rush was just the ticket to get me started.” | Lit Hub Craft
- “A week later, I am watching Daria, a new show on MTV. My mom walks in front of the television, scowling at the cartoon. ‘I hate this crap,’ she says.” Read from Isabel Banta’s debut novel, Honey. | Lit Hub Fiction
- An ode to Cricket, the magazine for children with “literary or artistic pretensions.” | The New York Times
- “[It] it ostensibly about isolation but has in fact become part of a larger story of literary collaboration and the boundaries between artists, friends, and their work.” Alice Robb on the unexpected afterlife of Autobiography of a Face. | The New Republic
- AI search startup Perplexity plagiarized an article about itself. | Wired
- On distribution co-ops and the state of indie publishing in a post-SPD world: “Each imprint had its own identity, but they worked well together when we saw them side by side.” | Publishers Weekly
- Sarah Manguso and Tess McNulty talk truth, fiction, and typography. | Public Books
- “It didn’t matter if our coverage was smarter or better written than what was available on the hundreds of other sites running the same thing.” Kevin Nguyen on what Game of Thrones did to media. | The Verge
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