Lit Hub Daily: September 28, 2020
THE BEST OF THE LITERARY INTERNET
TODAY: In 1923, Radio Times, the world’s first broadcast listings magazine, is published, detailing programs for six BBC wireless stations; Newspapers at the time boycotted radio listings fearing that increased listenership might decrease their sales.
- Why does everyone in this country think they’re middle class? David R. Roediger on the myth of American exceptionalism. | Lit Hub Politics
- “There is an art to being a good tour guide of the depths of mathematics.” How storytellers use math (without scaring people away). | Lit Hub Criticism
- “Dictée is a novel, an essay, a prose poem—and a daring reflection on what it means to inhabit a language, or be denied a home there.” Brian Dillon reminds us of the genius of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. | Lit Hub Criticism
- “Here was the first European to visit the New World and what was one of the first strange creatures he saw? A mermaid.” Vaughn Scribner on made-up monsters in the age of imperial conquest. | Lit Hub History
- “My desire to rescue my book from that dungeon had dissipated into thin air, and all I felt was the solid sense of repulsion in my guts.” Amir Ahmadi Arian on navigating literary censorship in Iran. | Lit Hub Politics
- The best reviewed books in history and politics, September edition. | Lit Hub, Book Marks
- On Alyssa Cole, love between Black characters in literature, and how the romance industry reflects “America in miniature.” | Slate
- “Her writing is best understood as a grand project of restoration, aesthetic as well as political.” Casey Cep profiles Marilynne Robinson. | The New Yorker
- From Lorraine Hansbery to Joyce Carol Oates: the National Portrait Gallery celebrates the women writers who shaped the past century of American Literature. | Smithsonian
- On Elif Batuman’s The Idiot and why art matters at the end of the world. | Vox
- “The wonder-filled, strange and surprising worlds of fairy tales have the potential for a kind of queer enchantment.” Jennifer Orme’s list of short, LGBTQ-friendly fairy tales. | Xtra
- “I’m just really excited and proud of the different spaces I’ve been able to exist in in meaningful ways.” Writer Rachel Cargle on opening an independent bookstore in Akron, Ohio. | WKSU
- “I’ve incorporated climate writing into my curriculum as a professor of creative writing so that the subject is central.” Emily Raboteau talks about how literary writers approach the climate crisis. | The Lafayette
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