Lit Hub Daily: June 6, 2023

TODAY: In 1923, V. C. Andrews is born.  

• Per annual tradition, here’s your Ultimate Summer 2023 Reading List—aka the books a lot of people will be reading. | Lit Hub

• How Andre Dubus III beats writer’s block, and other insights from the Lit Hub Questionnaire. | Lit Hub Questionnaire

• Turns out, ice is everywhere in American literature. | Lit Hub History

• “Every novelist’s life has taken place during times of turmoil.” Jane Smiley considers how the essay and the novel inform each other. | Lit Hub Criticism

• “I don’t know about the rest of the universe, but the rule of three seems to hold up nicely in The Master and Margarita.” Paul Goldberg on the third rail of the Russian classic. | Lit Hub Criticism

• Katie Williams has some thoughts on surviving the misery of writing. | Lit Hub

• Going beyond True Grit in examining Charles Portis’s legacy. | The Atlantic

• All hail the “menopause novel.” | The Guardian

• Scalawag is devoting this week to #StopCopCity, writing focused on countering police abuses in Atlanta. | Scalawag

• “Walking the property’s grounds, I thought about what it means to be allowed entry into a stranger’s Eden.” Alissa Bennett recounts trespassing on Edith Wharton. | The Paris Review

• How the French government—all the way up to President Emmanuel Macron—is using science fiction to prepare for a variety of apocalyptic futures. | France 24

• Fara Dabhoiwala considers the necessity of the index. | NYRB

Also on Lit Hub: 29 new books out today • My mother was also a first mermaid of color • Read from Deborah Levy’s latest novel, August Blue

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