Lit Hub Daily: June 7, 2023

TODAY: In 1899, Elizabeth Bowen, Irish-English author and critic, is born.  

• Nick de Semlyen reveals the literary roots of Die Hard (yes, your favorite Christmas movie is based on a book). | Lit Hub Film & TV

• Is Juliet the best “dead girl”? On the morbid entertainments of sex and death. | Lit Hub

• Love undocumented: Anna Lekas Miller refutes the xenophobic myths underpinning “green card marriages.” | Lit Hub Politics

• Martha Hodes reflects on why she didn’t want her beloved father to read her memoir, the story of her childhood hijacking. | Lit Hub Memoir

• “The choice is not between burning down the kitchen or revisiting it in a nostalgic dream-state.” Rebecca May Johnson finds radical potential in Nigella Lawson’s cooking. | Lit Hub Food

• Shannon Bowring recommends linked story collections, from Sherwood Anderson to Sandra Cisneros. | Lit Hub Reading Lists

• “It’s in that tortured, contradictory internal monologue—familiar to other trans people as we contemplate what seems to be an extraordinary, unimaginable truth—that Pageboy is most powerful.” Gina Chua considers Elliot Page’s new memoir. | The New York Times

• “We only borrow people.” Frieda Hughes on saying goodbye to loved ones, and her magpie George. | Vanity Fair

• 81 queer and feminist books coming out this summer. | Autostraddle

• “Pursuing optimal wellness, whether as a billionaire trying to age himself backward or a glowy-skinned dust influencer forever calibrating her microbiome, is a lonely business.” Jessie Gaynor on fictionalizing wellness food. | TASTE

• Abraham Verghese is the 2023 recipient of the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference “Writer in the World” Prize. | SVWC

• Mosab Abu Toha and Nathalie Handal discuss memory, poetry, and the literature of Gaza. | Words Without Borders

• 46 books that changed the world. | Mental Floss

Also on Lit Hub: A conversation with Jon Michaud • Seven books that feature rock music • Read from Helen Schulman’s latest novel, Lucky Dogs

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