Lit Hub Daily: May 13, 2021

TODAY: In 1916, Sholem Aleichem, whose short stories inspired The Fiddler on the Roof, dies.

• “I am delighted to finally read Austen, but you cannot make me drink tea.” How a pandemic reading project turned Josh Raff into a Janeite—and why it took him so long to get there. | Lit Hub

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• Martha C. Nussbaum on the “big, borderless workplace” of the art world, which lets abusers believe their genius is greater than rules. | Lit Hub

• “I thought: Oh, thank God. There are gay women in heaven. I did not even feel daunted that she was Virginia Woolf.” We’ll have what Rachel Eisendrath’s having (the apparitions, that is). | Lit Hub

• When did mountain climbing become equivalent with business success? Margaret Grebowicz traces it back to the 1996 Everest disaster. | Lit Hub

• “Now that those fantastical birds had been presented as a reasonable proposition, of course I wanted one.” Sean Flynn sets out to purchase a peacock (or three). | Lit Hub

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• Joshua Corey on what we can learn about our current crises from the “macabre and tantalizing waltz” of Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger. | Lit Hub

• “Sitting has saved my life, steadied relationships, enabled me to keep going in phases of the utter worst.” Antonia Pont in praise of Sitting (but definitely not meditating). | Lit Hub

• RED INK ROUNDTABLE: Jo Ann Beard, Katherine Angel, Dantiel W. Moniz, and Jeannine Ouellette discuss how desire propels the writing life. | Lit Hub

• 80 crime novels, mysteries, thrillers, and nonfiction books to keep you reading all summer long. | CrimeReads

• Sarah Broom on Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, John Banville on Graham Greene, Lauren Oyler on Torrey Peters, and more of the Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks

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• “The minute you acknowledge the existence of a white audience, you find yourself othering your own subjectivity. You become object.” Brandon Taylor on autofiction and Black subjectivity. | Sweater Weather

• Josh Hawley’s new book about big tech is “a case study in why conservatives struggle to be populists.” | The New Republic

• “Enclosing the calamity of extinction within the cloistered space of the first person, these novels represent alienation as an inescapable fact.” On the literature of climate anxiety. | The Drift

• “I have to fight being subsumed into the system, and I don’t always do that.” Alison Bechdel analyzes power, separatism, and gaining mainstream recognition. | Vulture

• The Dublin townhouse that served as the setting for James Joyce’s “The Dead” will be converted into a hostel, over opposition from writers and cultural groups. | The New York Times

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Also on Lit Hub: Tayari Jones on The Women Of Brewster Place, nearly 40 years later • Nandana Dev Sen on translating the poetry of her mother, Nabaneeta • Read a story from Mikhail Iossel’s latest collection, Love Like Water, Love Like Fire

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