Lit Hub Daily: June 26, 2023

• “What’s odd about being a novelist today is that the position retains a shimmer of prestige with only a glimmer of the audience.” Tom Rachman enumerates the pitfalls of book promotion in the internet age. | Lit Hub

• John Kaag and Jonathan van Belle consider the “deep sincerity” of dark humor and what Henry David Thoreau’s satire reveals about ourselves. | Lit Hub Humor

• For Isabella Hammad, the idea that good art is apolitical is a very political position. | Lit Hub In Conversation

• How a humble Venetian monk created the first annotated map of the world. | Lit Hub History

• “To speak as Tibetans, to write as Tibetans, is to continually recreate the Tibetan nation.” Tenzin Dickie considers the Tibetan essay. | Lit Hub History

• “Caligula was killed in an alleyway in the palace complex by some of his closest advisers, in 41 C.E.; Domitian was stabbed in his cubiculum, or “private room,” in 96 C.E.; Caracalla was knifed while relieving himself…” Mary Beard on the final words of Roman emperors. | The New Yorker

• In honor of the 150th anniversary of Willa Cather’s birth, explore her Nebraska hometown. | Smithsonian Magazine

• Jonathan Thirkield considers the computer-generated writing that “can help us imagine much more resonant and compelling digital futures.” | The Paris Review

• “Why should I feel shame? Why should I hasten to add that I commonly read Elena Ferrante and Ben Lerner too? Why does that matter?” Katharine Coldiron on “guilty pleasures.” | LARB

• Stephen King, David Sedaris, Carmen Maria Machado, and more on the first time they read Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery,” which turns 75. | New York Times

• Antonia Hitchens talks to Joyce Carol Oates about Americanism, Twitter, and beloved objects. | WSJ Magazine

Also on Lit Hub: The books that helped Diana Goetsch write a trans memoir • What suitcases teach us about art and life • Read from Beth Raymer’s debut novel, Fireworks Every Night