Lit Hub Weekly: August 22-26, 2022

TODAY: In 1856, Ivan Franko, author of the first detective novels and modern poetry in the Ukrainian language, is born.   

• Jincy Willett on how (and why) to base a character on yourself. | Lit Hub Craft

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• “Why take a cast of a dead person’s face when so many people cannot bear to look at the dead body at all?” Hayley Campbell considers the many lives of death masks throughout history. | Lit Hub History

• Alexa T. Dodd recounts what she learned about art and success after five years with a predatory vanity press. | Lit Hub Memoir

• Mutated crabs and zombie fish: How an unlucky Texas fisherman stumbled upon an environmental catastrophe. | Lit Hub Nature

• Abdulrazak Gurnah, Emma Donoghue, Sigmund Freud, and T. S. Eliot all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week. | Book Marks

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• Samantha Ladwig on two August thrillers that complicate the definition of victim. | CrimeReads

• What did we learn from the DOJ v. PRH case? | The New York Times

• Amanda Gorman talks to Kaitlyn Greenidge about poetry, possibility, and changing the world. | Harper’s Bazaar

• “I read the book as a critique of machismo. Machismo is self-romanticizing, after all, whereas everything about Tripticks reads like a subversion or parody of self-romance.” Danielle Dutton on Ann Quin’s Tripticks. | The New Yorker

• Alyson McCabe considers the contradictions of crime novelist Patricia Highsmith. | NPR

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• Nick Ripatrazone makes the case for John Cheever’s “The Swimmer” as the perfect late summer read. | Gawker

• “If writers make mistakes, explore mistakes, celebrate mistakes, and embrace lives that are mistakes, they also can use mistakes.” Ed Simon parses typos and misprints. (Or, an ode to copyeditors.) | The Millions

• Naseem Jamnia lists five science fiction and fantasy books that take place in queernormative worlds. | Tor.com

• “Inopportuneness in all its manifestations—bad timing, rotten luck, missed connections—is the dominant theme of Italo Svevo’s life, work, and afterlife.” Nathaniel Rich discusses one of Italy’s greatest authors. | NYRB

• Autumn Fourkiller recommends books that revolve around Indigenous voices and rebirth. | Longreads

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• “The criticism underscores the fact that decades after its publication, A People’s History still matters, and it is still sparking debate in history classrooms.” Remembering Howard Zinn at 100. | The Nation

• Arimeta Diop offers a brief history of the Trumpworld tell-all. | Vanity Fair

• Brian Michael Murphy explores the sinister history of libraries fumigating “foreign” books. | Lapham’s Quarterly

• “Since childhood, Murata has been troubled by an intense and sometimes painful effort to be an ‘ordinary earthling.’” Thu-Huong Ha profiles Sayaka Murata. | Wired

• Nate Rogers tells the story of missing “Hotel California” lyric sheets—featuring rare book dealers, Nabokov’s estate, and the “relentless” Don Henley. | Los Angeles Times

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• Jessamine Chan walks us through the process of getting her book published—from first draft to Today show appearance. | The New York Times

Also on Lit Hub:

Marguerite Duras on writing the screenplay for Alain Resnais’ Hiroshima Mon Amour • Kristine Langley Mahler on being a Google creep (for art!) • How the madness of QAnon seeped into everyday life • A political—and personal—history of gay bathhouses • Lauren Acampora on the particular pain of book promotion • The history of Riga’s “Little Nuremberg” trial • On The Expanse and redrawing the lines of a body • What Langston Hughes understood about how power shapes the US Census • Gwendolyn Kiste on the gothic horror of a post-Roe America • Aja Monet on Robin D.G. Kelley and the ongoing struggle for Black liberation • A look at the benefits and pitfalls of “smart cities” • Where are all the black boxers in fiction? • 13 ways of looking at Denial • Jerome Charyn on finding literary inspiration at the movie theater • How Big Pharma and Big Tech collude to exploit basic human needs • Keith Corbin on the patterns, routines, and pervasive fear of daily life in prison • Martha Cooley on emigrating to Venice (and befriending a donkey) • The 50 best fictional dragons—yes, fictional • How Bruce Lee became an international icon • Carrie Jenkins on love and polyamory

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