- “Animals aren’t just repositories for human meanings, even if we unthinkingly use them to reflect our own selves and concerns.” Helen Macdonald offers some hard-won wisdom for writing about the natural world. | Lit Hub Craft
- “You were a sweet and powerful man, walking through the fire of your time.” Nikky Finney writes a letter to John Lewis. | Lit Hub Politics
- When Muhammad Ali first met the Black Prince of Harlem—also known as Drew “Bundini” Brown, one of boxing’s great hype men. | Lit Hub Biography
- Trump as Hiaasenian Florida Man, Beowulf for the social-media era, Parul Sehgal on Elena Ferrante’s new novel, and more of the Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks
- Was El Chapo a bandit, a ruthless killer, or a sacrificial lamb set up by the real kingpins? Alan Feuer searches for elusive answers. | CrimeReads
- “His point is clear: There can be no in-between. You can’t be passive in this conversation.” ZZ Packer profiles Ibram X. Kendi | GQ
- A profile of Ann Goldstein, the translator as meticulous and self-effacing as her best-known collaborator, Elena Ferrante. | The New York Times
- What will post-pandemic fiction look like? The books that followed 9/11 could be a clue. | Santa Fe New Mexican
- How does Brit Bennett’s The Vanishing Half respond to Toni Morrison? | Vox
- Writers in Kuwait are celebrating an “anti-censorship” amendment to a publishing law that ends the need for the Ministry of Information’s prior approval. | The National
- “As writers, we must not say that the fire is coming, but that it was never extinguished in the first place.” Mychal Denzel Smith on how we will remember the protests of 2020. | GEN
- How Edith Wharton addressed the public self, intimate spaces, and the “very American myth of home-building as an exercise in self-creation.” | Los Angeles Review of Books
- “Every wood-wrapped window was a canvas. Minneapolis quickly has become an art gallery, and every neighborhood curates a different emotion.” Danez Smith on the protest art of Minneapolis. | Vanity Fair
- “Swift’s and Sade’s literature was neither the literature of majestic vision nor of pure shock.” On Jonathan Swift, the Marquis de Sade, and the art of upsetting people. | Lapham’s Quarterly
- Kuwait, which has banned thousands of books in recent years, is scaling back its censorship laws. | The Guardian
- “There is no industry standard for which books get fact checked . . . There is no industry standard for what it means for a book to be ‘fact checked.’ There is no industry standard for where the fact check should go in the production process of a book.” Emma Copely Eisenberg on the lack of standard fact-checking in nonfiction and why we all should care. | Esquire
- How Chekhov invented the modern short story. | New Statesman
- Nobel-prize winning Belarusian author Svetlana Alexievich called on Russia to help persuade President Alexander Lukashenko to negotiate. | Yahoo News
- 2020 will be remembered for a lot of disasters, but some good things too, like the surge of Black women who have topped bestseller lists. | Elle
- Alexander Chee writes about his grandfather’s memories of the decades-long Japanese occupation of Korea. | The New York Times Magazine
Also on Lit Hub:
It’s that time of year: Emily Temple considers the new generation of great campus novels • Jhumpa Lahiri, Eduardo Halfon, and Ilan Stavans share views of the pandemic as immigrant writers • On William Faulkner’s pride in—and quarrels with—his ancestral legacy • Exploring the gulf between history and national myth in Israel • Nick Flynn on the hard art of teaching your child where you come from • Rev. William J. Barber on the scourge of environmental racism • A poem by Dawn Lundy Martin • Clifford D. Conner looks at the many ways in which corporate money has distorted American science • Ros Anderson on the difficulty of finding a distinct human voice for her AI protagonist • In lockdown, David Farrier rediscovers drawing • The frustrated migrations of Greece, in mythology and life • Joy Harjo on the diverse, groundbreaking world of Indigenous poetry • David Giffels considers rural addiction and the need for a multitude of voices • Was The Graduate inspired by a Brontë family scandal? • Jason Diamond on the sprawl of suburban culture • Sarah M. Broom looks back at the devastation of New Orleans East, 15 years after Hurricane Katrina • Daniel Torday on The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, 100 years later • Heather O’Neill on reading Virginia Woolf and looking back at her younger selves • Bask in some welcome beauty with the best book covers of August
Best of Book Marks:
Octavia Butler’s Kindred, Jacqueline Woodson’s Brown Girl Dreaming, Toni Morrison’s Beloved, and more rapid-fire book recs from Margaret Wilkerson Sexton • Héctor Tobar recommends five iconic literary road trips, from On the Road to 2666 • A month of literary listening: AudioFile’s best audiobooks of August • Helen Macdonald talks Sherlock Holmes, Ursula Le Guin, and hating On the Road in the Book Marks Questionnaire • Ali Smith’s Summer, Helen Macdonald’s Vesper Flights, Daisy Johnson’s Sisters, and Carl Hiaasen’s Squeeze Me all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week
New on CrimeReads:
Five international crime novels you should read this August • Eight dark thrillers with even darker antagonists, from Michael Laurence • Elizabeth Penney on cozy mysteries featuring murder in the midst of festivities • August’s best debut crime and mystery novels • Carl Hiassen on Palm Beach, slithery characters, and Florida crime fiction • Wendy Corsi Staub asks authors how they plan to address the pandemic in their fiction • Sarah Vaughan on why motherhood is a fertile subject for crime fiction • Hannah Dennison fondly recalls the sordid world of 1970s hotels • Why The Sting is still the ultimate grifter movie, from Olivia Rutigliano • S. J. Watson on six novels that could only take place at the seashore
