Lit Hub Daily: May 21, 2021

• Nuclear War: What’s in it for You? and 76 other wild book titles you’ve (probably) never heard of. | Lit Hub

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• Rafe Posey advises on how to avoid bottomless research holes and navigate the “boggy ground between world-building and pedantry.” | Lit Hub Craft

• “What does it mean to be ‘untouchable’ during a pandemic in which the upper classes are making the world more dangerous for the lower?” Saikat Majumdar considers class and caste in India’s Covid crisis. | Lit Hub Politics

• “INGREDIENTS: One mastodon, plants, water.” Alex Bezzerides on the first humans to start cooking meat (and why we have them to thank for braces). | Lit Hub History

• Sharmila Cohen recommends translated sci-fi books by and about women, featuring Olga Tokarczuk, Hao Jingfang, and more. | Lit Hub Reading Lists

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• “As a writer who goes into these subcultures, I always feel the temptation to point and sneer, which is breathtakingly easy and isn’t all that interesting.” Barrett Swanson in conversation wtih Jordan Kisner. | Lit Hub

• INTERVIEW WITH A JOURNAL: Everything you need to know about Apogee, the journal where marginalized writers are the first priority. | Lit Hub

• From gentleman thieves to consummate professionals, Ashley Weaver takes a look at safecrackers in fact and fiction. | CrimeReads

• “The Israeli soldiers will ask the child not, Did you throw stones, but, Why did you throw stones.” Read Rachel Kushner’s 2016 account of her time in the West Bank. | n+1

• Considering the (banal, pervasive) filing cabinet, and its critical role in 20th century information infrastructure. | Places Journal

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• “It is the fanciest hotel I have ever stayed in, and I am here only because I might die.” Alex McElroy reflects on their eight-day stay at a New York City quarantine hotel. | Esquire

• Are unions the way to diversify the publishing industry’s overwhelmingly white workforce? | Workday Minnesota 

• “Stories can feel almost like human contact, or at least connection—something I think a lot of us have been missing lately.” Brian Broome on the power of storytelling, his memoir, and empathy. | PEN America

• Claire Fuller discusses craft, character development, and ownership. | Full Stop

• “Everybody is a reader, you just have to find the right book that speaks to your soul.” Talking to Darlene Okpo, who recently opened the new Brooklyn bookstore Adanne. | Vogue

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Also on Lit Hub: Dave Seminara gets mixed up in the subculture of extreme travelers • Does a color exist if we don’t have a name for it? • Read from Jonathan Parks-Ramage’s debut novel, Yes, Daddy