Lit Hub Weekly: April 15 - 19, 2019

• On Antiques Roadshow, a woman discovered that a ring—inscribed “C. Brontë”— she had found in her father-in-law’s attic contained a lock of Charlotte Brontë’s hair. | Jezebel
• “So that’s how love works.” An illustrated guide to what Mira Jacob learned from American movies. | BuzzFeed Reader
• “How to express, through fashion, that I had become a fully realized, politically aware, sexually liberated queer adult?” Andrew Sean Greer on learning the virtues of sartorial vulgarity. | Vogue
• “Being a successful, middle-aged, overweight woman, people are so angry that you’re stepping out of line”: Alexandra Alter profiles E.L. James, the publicity-shy empress of kink, who is set to come out with a new novel—but no more sex dungeons! | The New York Times
• Jhumpa Lahiri on the cosmopolitan fiction of Igiaba Scego. | New York Review Daily
• “To the idea of the ten-dollar word, the thesaurus says: really, there is no such thing as a budget for words.” In defense of the much-maligned thesaurus. | The Outline
• “We commiserated over… the strangeness of a person being judged by the size and shape of the flesh container they happened to inhabit.” Myla Goldberg on being photographed by Richard Avedon. | The New Yorker
• “Deviant in syntax and form but also in semantics.” On translating Emily Dickinson. | The Paris Review
• Paco Ignacio Taibo II is an outspoken Mexican writer and activist who runs the Fondo de Cultura Económica publishing group. He has a progressive—and politically bold—plan to rehabilitate his country, using its literature. | The Nation
• In France, five different editions of Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame have become bestsellers following the fire at Notre Dame Cathedral. | The Guardian
• “[Y]ou change the conditions under which violence prevailed.” Rachel Kushner profiles prison abolitionist Ruth Wilson Gilmore. | The New York Times Magazine
• Marlon James, Tara Westover, and Lynn Nottage are three of the year’s most influential people, along with the creators of Juul. | TIME
• Read a profile of Barry Lopez, the National Book Award-winning author who for decades has “sought to re-establish our ethical relationships with the land and the other creatures who dwell on it.” | America Magazine
• “The Mueller report is Game of Thrones for the real world—minus the dragons, but with all the political intrigue.” The irony of profiting from a report about possible government corruption. | The Atlantic
• “These individual stories that we tell about refugees or other exploited populations are being produced by a publishing industry that itself is the outcome of exploitation and inequality.” Read an interview with Viet Thanh Nguyen. | Asymptote

Also on Lit Hub:

In honor of the 67th birthday of Ralph Ellison’s masterpiece, Invisible Man, here are 25 of the novel’s best covers • How conspiracy enters the American mainstream, from irradiated milk to demonic minions • Joshua Furst on the urgency of historical fiction • A profile of Susan Choi • When Nelson Algren fell in love with Simone de Beauvoir • Pico Iyer on autumn in Japan and the beauty of impermanence • Harold Bloom on Wallace Stevens, young love, and old age • Garth Risk Hallberg makes a strong case for reading Lucky Per, the great Scandinavian novel • “Who if not us?” 17 writers on the role of fiction in addressing climate change • Bryce Andrews visit’s Montana’s Mission Mountains, where grizzly bears and hobby farmers come face to face • “If Buttigieg is elected, do I think it bodes well for his presidency that his favorite book is Ulysses? Yes.” Tyler Malone on judging candidates by their shelves • On Heike Geissler’s grim account of the Amazon workplace • Cecelia Ahern on how she writes a novel a year • A poem from Forrest Gander’s Be With, winner of this year’s Pulitzer Prize • Why are so many fictional teens entering cults? • Tips on raising a strapping boy-child (Victorian-style) • Prepping for MFA programs as a person of color • On the wide reach of cult logic • Why War and Peace may be the antidote to our continuous state of emergency • Jane Alison on Tobias Wolff and Raymond Carver • What Oliver Sacks’ obsession with weightlifting can tell us about his writing • Simon Critchley on how we collude in our calamity • Rachel Cline on unearthing a #MeToo story while revising her novel • A reading list of fiction about fact: Michael Cunningham, George Saunders, and other “literary grave robbers” • Myla Goldberg’s list of books to help you think like a visual artist • Germaine Greer and the cusp of the feminist revolution: on the early days of the women’s liberation movement • Jay Parini on the wild visionary at the heart of Christianity

Best of Book Marks:

New on CrimeReads:

Angie Kim on how to write gripping courtroom scenes • April’s best debut crime and mystery books • Crime fiction’s colorful history of being freaked out by weed • Alisa Smith on WWII spymaster Vera Atkins and her remarkable network of women spies • Alexander McCall Smith talks Scandinavian crime fiction, philosophy, and inspiration • Nathan Ward on “Crimeways,” the greatest crime magazine that never was • Gary Phillips measures the fictions of the drug war against its realities • Mariah Fredericks on the crimes of the Gilded Age • Heather Gudenkauf on creative thinking and complex psychology in crime fiction • Alafair Burke chooses 6 books that mine the tension between family dynamics and the legal system