Lit Hub Daily: September 1, 2021

• “Whether or not Proust would join Instagram, he would undoubtedly understand the tragedy of it.” Meredith Westgate wonders about the role of memory in the age of social media. | Lit Hub

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• As we approach the 20th anniversary of 9/11, Lila Nordstrom recommends breaking our habit of “passive mourning” and instead looking to books that inspire activism and advocacy. | Lit Hub Reading Lists

• Deconsecrating science writing: Joshua Roebke considers why we believe in the unseen. | Lit Hub Science

• “Sure, pie is immoderate, overindulgent, unrefined, and potentially inflammatory, but so is America.” Matt Siegel traces the transatlantic history of pies. | Lit Hub Food

• 12 crime novels to read this September, as selected by the CrimeReads editors. | CrimeReads

• Stanislaw Lem’s The Truth, Lavie Tidhar’s The Escapement, Lincoln Michel’s The Body Scout, and more of September’s most-anticipated Sci-Fi and Fantasy titles. | Book Marks

• On Keen On, Johnny C. Taylor, Jr. on leading your organization into the future, and Eyal Press on the immorality of “dirty work.” | Lit Hub Virtual Book Channel

• Karl Ove Knausgaard talks with Torrey Peters about gender, genre, and more. | Vulture

• Revisiting the cinematic adaptation of Robert Graves’s I, Claudius. | Bright Wall/Dark Room

• “Pop Song begins to read like a beautiful, literary breakup album, each essay operating as its own track.” A close reading of Larissa Pham’s latest book, which masters the art of the breakup song. | Ploughshares

• “I think you tell some general truths in fiction and you tell some personal truths; it’s sort of a combination.” Hilma and Meg Wolitzer in conversation. | Washington Post

• Raven Leilani talks to Jennifer Wilson about health insurance, creativity under capitalism, and the realities of Black work. | Lux

• Alexander Chee profiles Tony Leung, “the preeminent Hong Kong actor of his generation and one of international cinema’s greatest stars.” | GQ

• What happened to privacy? Roslyn Fuller explores digital life in discussing new work by Heidi Boghosian. | Los Angeles Review of Books

Also on Lit Hub: What to read this month, based on your astrology sign • A poem by Stanley Moss • Read new fiction from Dawnie Walton, “The High Shelf”