Lit Hub Daily: June 27, 2018

• “I remember toddling into my mother’s room, where she was taking a bath in the late afternoon. I announced, ‘I’m free. I can read.’” Edmund White on a life lived in books. | Lit Hub
• On the (very high) highs and (deep down) lows of opening an independent bookstore in 2018. | Lit Hub
• From Twin Peaks to My Favorite Murder, how our obsession with dead girl stories hurts women. | Lit Hub
• Audiences need to go deeper than the motives and the method: Why podcasts are the ideal medium for true crime. | CrimeReads
• “I don’t think that pointing out a flaw in a literary work means that you hated it.” Talking book criticism and the internet with Tobias Carroll. | Book Marks
• Jonathan Franzen still loves birds, has road rage, has a personal trainer, is fine. | The New York Times
• “It wasn’t so much a marriage of true minds as a fusion of two libraries.” Olivia Laing on finding love later in life with the poet Ian Patterson after the death of Patterson’s wife, Jenny Diski. | The Sunday Times
• “I shut the book quickly as I finished that sentence, heart racing, knowing that I’d read something wrong.” Manola Secaira on discovering her queer Latinx identity through literature. | HelloGiggles
• Scots rapper Loki (aka Darren McGarvey) has won the 2018 Orwell Prize for his book Poverty Safari. | BBC
• For 30 years Chris Offutt has been writing against the stereotyping of Appalachians, telling stories that need to be told. | Lit Hub
• The best book covers of the month, for those looking to primp their summer reading list. | Paste
• “There were no real constraints, which is actually pretty freaking scary.” Tommy Pico on creating a spoken poem for one of the most popular parks in the country. | Lit Hub
• Don’t understand season 2 of Westworld? Neither do we! But maybe a little Shakespeare will help. | The New Republic

Also on Literary Hub: Not just sad valleys and noble drunks: Cynan Jones on Weslsh lit · How fake news swings elections: On the power of bots and the risk to democracy · Read from Ahmed Bouanani’s novel,The Hospital.