Lit Hub Daily: November 1, 2019

• Mira Jacob, Maile Meloy, Emily Raboteau, and Diana Abu-Jaber discuss comfort food, dream dinner parties, and more. | Lit Hub
• Swimming through writer’s block at an Icelandic public pool: how Amanda Whiting spent her residency in the town of Laugarvatn. | Lit Hub
• “What is romance if not an aspect of hesitation?” André Aciman on writing his way back to his famous lovers. | Lit Hub
• “Reality could not conquer me. Instead, I conquered reality.” Ahmet Atlan, the imprisoned Turkish dissident, on the freedom of his mind. | Lit Hub
• Another installment of the Astrology Book Club, in which we use our uncanny knack for astral divination to recommend books for each zodiac sign. | Lit Hub
• Cookbooks are so much more than recipes and photographs: Joshua Raff on the triple pleasures of memoir, travel, and family history. | Lit Hub
• Jake Hinkson traces the deep literary roots of backcountry noir, from Cain and Abel to Daniel Woodrell’s Winter’s Bone. | CrimeReads
• Prince’s autobiography, a new novel from Kevin Wilson, and Tom Brokaw’s reflections on the fall of Richard Nixon all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week. | Book Marks
• In Natalie Eve Garrett’s new, genre-blending book, authors from Claire Messud and Edwidge Danticat to Lev Grossman and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie pair personal stories with recipes. | NPR
• Get your first look at the BBC adaptation of Normal People (with some snarky comments) here. | The Hub
• David Bowie didn’t hide the fact that he loved books. A new one by music journalist John O’Connell traces the influence of 100 books on Bowie’s music. | Newsweek
• Philip Roth quietly left at least $2 million of his $10 million estate to the Newark Public Library. | Wall Street Journal
• “Things were jumping out at me that I felt like I’d never heard before.” Inside Greta Gerwig’s “literary investigation” of Little Women. | The New York Times
• “We never called it a true crime book, but everyone has said that’s what it is, and I only embrace that label.” Ronan Farrow on writing Catch and Kill. | Publishers Weekly
• Angie Cruz discusses her novel Dominicana, and creating an Instagram archive of working-class Dominican women. | The Cut

Also on Lit Hub: A century before Springsteen, Stephen Crane chronicled Asbury Park • 10 books you should read this November, according to Lit Hub staff and contributors • Read a story from Emmanuelle Pagano’s collection Faces on the Tip of My Tongue (trans. Sophie Lewis and Jennifer Higgins).