Lit Hub Weekly: April 23 - 27, 2018

• PBS’s The Great American Read has released their list of America’s 100 most-loved books (as chosen by a national survey). | PBS
• “Middlemarch goes farther than rejecting social class as an arbiter of worth—it suggests that the vitality required to thrive in a changing world is not to be found in the aristocracy.” Jennifer Egan on George Eliot’s masterpiece (and her marriage). | The Guardian
• “You can do a lot of pretty philosophizing with yourself and still find, at the end of the day, that your work relies on the death of another human being.” Cutter Wood on the complicity of true crime writing. | The Paris Review
• “I wanted to have a life that would include people that the State of California has rendered invisible to others.” A profile of Rachel Kushner on the cusp of her new women’s prison-set novel. | The New Yorker
• A new study of more than 2 million books reveals that on average, books by women are priced 45% lower than those by men (and that genres traditionally considered female-oriented are assigned less value by the industry). | Fast Company
• “It strikes me now, on reflection, that the invention of the space may have been as fundamentally important as the invention of zero in mathematics.” César Aira on a childhood job and learning to type. | Tin House
• “I think of that store and consider it my family.” Kristen Arnett on the joys and comforts of 7-11. | Medium
• “Writers obviously know the power of words, and how naming something sets it on a certain path.” Marie Myung-Ok Lee on the way authors construct their bylines. | The Millions
• “During every book, I have a nervous breakdown.” An interview with newly-minted Pulitzer winner Andrew Sean Greer. | Esquire
• Why Jane Austen—”an authority on the complexity of life, particularly with regard to the intricacies of relationships”—is so frequently cited in legal decisions. | Electric Literature
• “I’m writing about queer women who are also immigrants, who are also at the crux of their community, who are also working class women . . . How do you write about women who are beholden to all of those parts of themselves?” An interview with Elaine Castillo. | AAWW
• “I wanted to be immune to time, the pain of it. But pretending didn’t make it so.” An excerpt from Melissa Broder’s The Pisces. | BuzzFeed Reader
• “Her claustrophobia isn’t only about crowds and tight spaces; it’s also about commitments.” Emily Gould profiles Liz Phair. | The Cut
• “Julia’s country childhood gave her two things: an affinity for Communism and a connection to Nature, which became her chief muse.” Molly Crabapple on Puerto Rico’s “most famous poet and greatest literary figure,” Julia de Burgos. | NYRB
• Kate Bush is coming home to wuthering, wuthering, Wuthering Heights: with a tribute to Emily Brontë that will be engraved in stone and placed near Brontë’s home in the Yorkshire Moors. | Pitchfork

Also on Literary Hub:

Years after his death, the great Barry Hannah haunts us still: Michael Bible remembers a true writer’s writer • On Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey, and the timeless tradition of mansplaining • “There are things more interesting than people.” Walking in the woods with Richard Powers can be pretty intense • Finally, the your favorite 90s Shakspeare adaptions definitively ranked • Ten things you should probably know about lists on the Internet: a public service announcement • Colette Shade: when fiction pulls back the curtain on American conservatism • Poet Michael Wasson on finding inspiration from Kurt Cobain to life in a rural Japanese village • Margaret Atwood on the origins of The Handmaid’s Tale and the anxiety around its publication • For Geoff Dyer, the photographs of Garry Winogrand contain entire novels of human experience • Nafissa Thompson-Spires: What if readers are learning the wrong lessons from my writing? • Susan Orlean talks to Paul Holdengraber about the childhood joy of library visits, and the importance of preserving the stories that comprise a culture • Astral lit: Van Morrison, unlikeliest of literary muses • So when, exactly, do children mistakenly start thinking they hate poetry? • History lost: on the last days of James Baldwin’s house in the south of France • When the horrors of the page hit the big screen: on the irresistible metaphor of Jekyll and Hyde, and why Frankenstein* will never die. (*Yes, yes, Frankenstein’s monster.)

The Best of Book Marks:

“Fecund, savage and irresistible”: the first reviews of every Gabriel García Márquez novel • Joy Williams’ “shimmering baubles from fairy tales and motherhood, madness and myth”; Alexander Chee’s debut collection of essays on identity, sexuality, family, art and war; and more Books Making News This Week • “I think a lot of people outside of the industry might be surprised to know how little writers and editors are paid,” writes Nathan Goldman in this week’s Secrets of the Book Critics • Will Self on Dic-lit, Curtis Sittenfeld on women’s suffrage, and more Book Reviews You Need to Read This Week  • New titles from Julian Barnes, Lawrence Wright, Rachel Kushner, and more feature among our Best Reviewed Books of the Week 

New on CrimeReads:

The 2018 Edgar Award Winners are announced! •  Neither spy nor innocent: diplomacy noir, from Graham Greene to Javier Marías to Hilary Mantel • On serial killers as pop culture icons and modern monsters • A history of Mediterranean Noir •  From yoga teacher to cult leader: the story of a Australian woman-led cult • A round-table discussion on the state of the traditional mystery, with Louise Penny, Margaret Maron, Kellye Garrett, Martin Edwards, and more • Inside a legendary Sherlock Holmes extravaganza • Joe R. Lansdale on religion in the South and the evolution of his crime fighting odd couple, Hap and Leonard • Can Grit Lit make the move from rural America to Britain? • Why rape memoirs should be read as true crime • A look at Korean Noir, from North to South, Seoul to Pyonyang • How a wealthy scion accumulated the world’s finest feather collection, then lost it all to blackmail