Lit Hub Daily: March 14, 2019

• Honoré de Balzac’s legendary love affair with his anonymous critic, or: how to marry a famous writer. | Lit Hub
• “Part warning, part keening, part celebration.” Anna Badkhen reflects on Barry Lopez’s Arctic Dreams. | Lit Hub
• “There exists a great web of interconnectedness that continues to this day.” Tracing the incredible journey of Polynesians across 10 million square miles. | Lit Hub
• “It seems that no matter what we choose, some valuable thing is lost.” Summer Brennan on the age-old, unwinnable debate over high heels. | Lit Hub
• The winners of this year’s Windham-Campbell Prizes! | Lit Hub
• Why are writers drawn to boxing? (Possibly to escape the abstractions of a life of the mind—with punching.) | Lit Hub
• Why do we hate the suburbs? Suzannah Lessard on E.M. Forster, bipartisan snobbery, and the language of place. | Lit Hub
• John Lanchester and Joseph O’Neill talk climate change, border walls, and more. | Lit Hub
• “The world moves on. But shards of these broken places remain, in spirit as much as structure.” Glen Erik Hamilton on exploring the ghost towns of central Oregon with his daughter. | CrimeReads
• Ahead of tomorrow’s awards ceremony, a look back at every National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction of the 21st century. | Book Marks
• Blair Braverman on sexist climbers, Claire Messud on Valeria Luiselli, a history of queer Brooklyn, and more of the Book Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks
• Dave Eggers’ The Parade: compassionate culture clash fiction OR college term paper steeped in pessimism? | Book Marks
• Women and small presses dominate this year’s Man Booker International Prize longlist, which includes a repeat appearance by last year’s co-winner, Olga Tokarczuk. Here are the 13 finalists. | The Man Booker Prize
• “When you first hear the idea it doesn’t quite sing, but do it once and you are smitten”: The story of Letters Live, a literary correspondence reading series that has entranced the likes of Benedict Cumberbatch, Olivia Colman, Thom Yorke, and more. | The Guardian
• Just in! Alicia Keys is set to release her memoir through Oprah Winfrey’s imprint this fall. | Hollywood Reporter
• “Sometimes it’s good to put yourself through the wringer.” Read an interview with Halle Butler. | Chicago Review of Books
• Why Alexandre Dumas, author of The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers, considered his magnum opus to be a 1,150 page cookbook. | Atlas Obscura
• “Give me a break, I was raised by atheists.” Read a short story by Laura van den Berg. | BOMB
• “It’s not that poetry isn’t sinister! It’s that it’s openly sinister.” A poet’s complaints against fiction. | The Paris Review

Also on Lit Hub: Five books you may have missed in February • The history of humanity, as revealed by its walls • Steve Anwyll on the uses of the autobiographical novel on Otherppl • Read from The Night Swimmers