Lit Hub Daily: November 21, 2018

• Some feel good literary content to see you through the long weekend: beautiful early dust jackets of iconic books. | Lit Hub
• “I am a better writer because of what patrons have taught me.” Kristen Arnett gives thanks for the virtues she has acquired as a librarian. | Lit Hub
• Grief and recovery in Thousand Oaks: Liska Jacobs on her hometown’s navigation of dual tragedies. | Lit Hub
• Whither the elderly lovers in literature? Susan Gubar on desire and longing later in life. | Lit Hub
• Dismissing inclusive children’s books as “too political” does a disservice to all kids. | Lit Hub
• Omise’eke Tinsley on Beyoncé, sexual politics, and moving beyond slut-shaming. | Lit Hub
• “The United States has similar morals regarding thinking men to those Russia had in the days of the Tsar.” The time Icelandic writer Halldór Laxness was almost deported from the US. | Lit Hub
• Now that Tom Cruise is out, who will be the next Jack Reacher? The CrimeReads editors assemble a list of actors tall enough to do justice to Lee Child’s creation. | CrimeReads
• This week in Secrets of the Book Critics: Tajja Isen on The Corrections and bringing care to the books you eviscerate. | Book Marks
• Insomniacs, atomic bombs, and rock and roll murders all feature among the Book Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks
• “The clay season is a ghost story. It always has been.” Read an excerpt from Rowan Ricardo Phillips’ The Circuit: A Tennis Odyssey. | The Paris Review
• Move over, Fear: Michelle Obama’s memoir had the best first week of any book this year—and the best since 2015’s Go Set a Watchman. | CNN
• But what did Henry David Thoreau do by Walden Pond? Apparently, lots of yoga. | Big Think
• The Times has published its list of 100 notable books of the year. Duly noted. | The New York Times
• A novelist in China was sentenced to 10 years in prison for writing gay sex scenes. | Jezebel
• A handy guide to the snubs, game-changers, and heavy hitters of this year’s literary awards season. | Entertainment Weekly
• “Perhaps the lectures were the best means of conveying that listening to someone you put on a pedestal explaining to you what aesthetics is unhelpful.” The experience of listening to an Anne Carson lecture. | The Outline

Also on Lit Hub: Revisiting the genius of Middlemarch • A brief history of schadenfreude • Read from Prague Spring