Lit Hub Daily: March 18, 2024
THE BEST OF THE LITERARY INTERNET
TODAY: In 1842, French poet and critic Stéphane Mallarmé is born.
- Just in time for March Madness: Scott Howard-Cooper on the early years of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. | Lit Hub Sports
- “The fallibility of our bodies, the cruelty of our society, all the angst and the ills….there is a lot of friction in this life. This, I know Emily knew.” How translating a novel about Emily Dickinson got Rhonda Mullins through the pandemic. | Lit Hub On Translation
- The thirty National Book Critics Circle Award finalists make one incredible reading list. | Lit Hub Reading Lists
- Laura Chow Reeve considers her great aunt Virginia Lee’s novel, The House That Tai Ming Built, and discourses around Asian American literary identity. | Lit Hub Criticism
- Want to work on your writing? Forget workshops. Try espionage instead. Valorie Castellanos Clark on Aphra Behn, the first woman to make a living writing in English. | Lit Hub History
- “Octopuses had been known to demonstrate rudimentary intelligence, but Mather recognized this as something far more sophisticated.” David Toomey on how octopuses play. | Lit Hub Nature
- “Inside the gunnysacks were the makings of a man.” Read from Parul Kapur’s new novel, Inside the Mirror. | Lit Hub Fiction
- “How can we think of and approach literature from a place that is suffering like this right now, that is being devastated as we speak?” Ursula Lindsey and Atef Alshaer on literature and Gaza. | The Point
- Lindsay Lohan, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Whitney Houston. Philippa Snow on the celebrity as artistic muse. | The Paris Review
- From Dracula to Normal People, Amanda Lehr reimagines famous works of Irish literature as limericks. | McSweeney’s
- “The threat of being undercut by machines is an ongoing concern for translators.” Yet another way AI could change literature. | The Guardian
- “I was tired of always seeing her and her artwork framed in victimization.” Xochitl Gonzalez on Ana Mendieta and art history. | The Millions
- Ivan Kreilkamp considers Nell Dunn’s novel Up the Junction, its film adaptation, and the Squeeze song of the same name. | JSTOR Daily
- “We’re not supposed to mourn his absence; we’re not supposed to want him back. But I kind of do.” Mark Harris on the Gay Best Friend. | T Magazine
