Lit Hub Daily: March 30, 2021

• An economist explains the winner-take-all-approach to book publishing—aka why the strongest predictor that a book will become a bestseller is… if it’s written by an author of bestsellers. | Lit Hub

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• “Just think of all the things a woman could do rather than clean. Which is to say, think of all the pastimes that might make her a slut.” Melissa Febos on the linguistic trajectory of the world “slut.” | Lit Hub

• Ilona Bannister asks, where’s the “room of one’s own” for moms? | Lit Hub

• Jonathan Meiburg on the falcon that defied nearly all of falconry conventions, Tina the striated caracara. | Lit Hub Nature

• “A shiver ran down my spine: this was Ragnarök itself, the end of the world.” Andri Snær Magnason navigates a sacred Icelandic text. | Lit Hub

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• How the West Village transformed Eleanor Roosevelt—and, through her radical education, maybe even secured FDR’s presidency. | Lit Hub History

• Welcome to Extinction City: Will Staples goes inside the lawless zones that provide safe harbor for animal traffickers. | CrimeReads

• A month of literary listening: AudioFile’s best audiobooks of March. | Book Marks

• A German newspaper said Shakespeare was “light years more modern” than Dante, and “Italian political and cultural leaders have sprung to [his] defence.” (He’s fine, everyone.) | The Guardian

• “If we are the creations of the gods or unknown forces, how can we have self-identity, agency, and free will?” On Prometheus, Frankenstein, and human life as technology. | Lapham’s Quarterly

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• Gabriela Garcia talks to Jane Ciabattari about the literature and class consciousness, and the ways you can—and can’t—reshape a story. | Lit Hub

• How Kitchen Table Press—founded by Black women in 1981 and committed to “only publish[ing] women of color with good (intentioned) hearts and strong minds”—changed the industry. | JSTOR Daily

• “How do you maintain a sane interaction and communication with that unseen person without sort of excommunicating them from humanity in some way?” Helen Oyeyemi talks about her writing career, the power of folk tales, and her creative process. | Vulture

• Michela Wrong on the task of uncovering Rwanda’s modern history, from inside a culture that “glorifies in its impenetrability.” | Lit Hub

• “Life may start making sense as you write, but it’s an artificial construct.” Read an interview with André Aciman. | The Millions

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• “What can we imagine and what can we do together? We have to collectively imagine.” Mariame Kaba on abolition and collaboration. | The Nation

Also on Lit Hub: Revisiting Speedboat in search of old New York • Marcos Gonsalez on what it means to choose whiteness • Read from Gabriela Garcia’s new novel, Of Women and Salt