Lit Hub Weekly: August 19 – 23, 2019

• Meet your new favorite game: Can you guess these classic novels from their Library of Congress subject categories? | Lit Hub
• The cautious optimism of Lenin’s Tomb: Luke Harding revisits David Remnick’s classic 25 years after the fall of the Soviet Union. | Lit Hub
• “A Thurber must be seen to be believed—there is no use trying to tell the plot of it.” Dorothy Parker on the art of her old pal James Thurber. | Lit Hub
• Blair Braverman on the last untamed frontier, Walter Kirn on the Oregon standoff, and more of the Book Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks
• Rob Hart recommends 10 books that defy all genre labels. | CrimeReads
• Art Spiegelman says his introduction to Marvel: The Golden Age, 1939-1949 was rejected because he made a joke comparing “Captain America’s most nefarious villain” to Donald Trump. | The Washington Post
• Revisiting the understated career of Dorothy West, the bestselling novelist who was the last writer associated with the Harlem Renaissance until her death in 1998. | The Guardian
• From Olga Tokarczuk to Yoko Ogawa: 10 great new books by women in translation. | BookRiot
• “It’s less a ghost than a fingerprint: personal, private, not meant to be observed.” Inside Philip K. Dick’s archives. | LA Times
• Counterfeits, rewrites, typos, and fakes: a deep dive into the many illegitimate versions of George Orwell’s books being sold on Amazon. | The New York Times
• Since Toni Morrison’s death, demand for her books has skyrocketed; in response, Knopf is revving up the printing press. | Publishers Weekly
• “This is aspirational minimalism, that elusive, functional-first aesthetic that so few of us can actually manage to cultivate.” Niina Pollari on the up-to-the-minute, anonymous style of William Gibson’s Cayce Pollard. | Garage
• Why the ancient poetry of Sappho is much more . . . stimulating than modern pornography. | Aeon
• Next time you have to call in sick, just blame books! In the 17th century, reading was “faulted for a range of physical ailments that included vertigo, gout and indigestion.” | The New York Times
• “We’re obsessed with the idea that somehow there’s a message that we’re not quite getting, and that it’s a message we need to hear.” Rachel Monroe on true crime, Columbine, and victimhood. | The Believer
• “What we spend money on—especially in a business where there isn’t enough to go around—is a statement of what we value”: Daniel Hahn on the politics of literary prize money and the virtues of shortlists. | The Guardian
• “What is the moral sense? Where does it come from? Is it intrinsic? If not, does that discredit morality itself?” Rachel Cusk considers Françoise Sagan. | The New Yorker
• On the joys and pains and financial quandaries of being a travelling actor, including performing “two hours of Shakespearean comedy while gesticulating wildly in the hopes of making a 400-year-old dick joke land.” | The Outline
• Books about insects are getting a lot of buzz(zzz) these days. | Outside
• Indie publisher Galley Beggar Press took a chance on Lucy Ellman’s giant, Booker Prize-nominated novel Ducks, Newburyport when her usual publisher passed on it. Here’s the story of the small press. | The National

Also on Lit Hub:

All this week we’ve been highlighting our most anticipated books on a variety of subjects, from politics and social science to memoir and essay collections, history and biography, and finally tech and science • Please teach more living poets: Nick Ripatrazone on the benefits of studying “breathing, human artists” • Gregory Pardlo writes a letter to Yusef Komunyakaa • Jay Parini on the golden age of reinventing real life • In which Nicola Waldron wonders if writing can be a kink • Amitav Ghosh and Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni on Indian epics in modern novels • At the birth of surrealism in Montparnasse, 1913 • On translating a childhood between five countries • Lessons from Nabokov: Rajia Hassib on finding freedom in a foreign language • Martha C. Nussbaum: Is there such a thing as an ethics of cosmopolitanism? • Kanako Nishi on Jun’ichiro Tanizaki’s subversive attention to detail in an age of endless scrolling • Walter Mosley talks to legendary filmmaker Walter Bernstein • From literary ambition to awkward sensitivity, Hans Christian Andersen, original softboi, had it all • Wittgenstein, making sense of nonsense, from Bertrand Russell to the existentialists • The political chaos and unexpected activism of the post-Civil War era • On Victor Hugo’s posthumous career as a religious prophet • Sara Martin on reciting Paul Celan to expedite intimacy • Lara Vapnyar on the book that made her weep for hours • J.M.G. Le Clézio on the expansive, immersive quality of great poetry • The feints and jabs of Polari, Britain’s gay slang • Susan Steinberg on the value of writing an ugly draft • What does a war correspondent look like? Zara Meerza on conflict journalism by Arab women • On overtourism and the joy of unsung places • Jenny Zhang on her complicated feelings about Little Women’s heroine

Best of Book Marks:

13 books that will actually make you laugh out loud: from A Confederacy of Dunces to The Sellout • What We Talk About When We Talk About Books author Leah Price recommends five great books about books • 14 rapid-fire book recs from rapper, singer, and writer, Dessa • A blistering Brexit novel, a instruction manual for antiracism, and an exposé of abuses at sea all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week

New on CrimeReads:

Nile Cappello on the Bloody Benders, America’s first family of serial killers • J. Kingston Pierce on 1970s crime fiction and the remarkable rise of regional noir • Michele Campbell on eight books about vacations that don’t exactly turn out to be relaxing • Hank Phillippi Ryan cross-examines the most suspenseful jury verdicts in fiction and film • Summer’s not over yet! Grab one of these riveting thrillers and hit the beach • Mary Anna Evans digs up some explanations for our fascination with archaeological mysteries • Lauren North on seven psychological thrillers that explore the inner workings of the human mind • August’s best international crime fiction • Olivia Rutigliano on how the new film Ready or Not marries traditional mystery tropes to feminist horror • Rachel Monroe talks murder, miniatures, and true crime fandom