Lit Hub Weekly: August 9 - 13

• Siri Hustvedt considers the evolution of hate-speech narratives, from 17th-century witch trials to the scourge of QAnon. | Lit Hub Politics

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• To piece together her family’s past, LaTanya McQueen visits southern plantations, those “tourist attractions meant for the white gaze” that fail to acknowledge the Black people who built them. | Lit Hub History

• “To traffic in the baffling is to maintain a certain endurance for that which doesn’t yield much, maybe any, result.” Kyle Beachy reflects on Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping and the theology of skateboarding. | Lit Hub

• How did an 18th-century Quaker farmboy lay the groundwork for the most powerful idea in science? | Lit Hub Science

• New titles from Leila Slimani, Said Sayrafiezadeh, Alaa Al-Aswany, and Charlie English all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week. | Book Marks

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• What if the best beach read is… nothing? Alex McElroy makes the case for leaving your books at home this one time. | The Atlantic

• 11 translated books by Asian women writers to read this #WITMonth. | Words Without Borders

• “The history of book reviewing is a history of frustration and disappointment. Why should our era be different?” On the state of the book review. | n+1

• “It was quite threatening.” Authors speak out on Goodreads-focused extortion schemes. | TIME

• “I feel very raw. … I couldn’t hear myself anymore.” Rita Dove on finding space to write and the process behind her new collection. | Guernica

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• Has the pandemic changed our approach to physical books? | The Washington Post

• The story of how Andrew Cuomo’s book turned into “a publisher’s worst nightmare.” | The New York Times

• Exploring the recent trend of the “Instagram novel.” | The New Republic

• “The real ‘secrets’ you can use are the obvious ones: work hard, don’t give up, learn your shit, do good work.” Lincoln Michel offers professional writing advice. | Counter Craft

• Vauhini Vara enlists the help of AI to write about her sister’s death. | The Believer

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• Sarah Manavis points out how books on productivity obscure larger-picture issues with work and the economy. | New Statesman

• Twelve authors answer the question “how do you write in tough times?” | Tor

• Lori Toppel considers the necessary delusions of the writing life. | Dorothy Parker’s Ashes

• A great (un)equalizer: How higher education exaggerates class and cultural divisions. | Public Books

• Considering the origins and outcomes of the “writer’s vagary”—“the solitary book in a well-known novelist’s oeuvre that deviates from a well-trodden path.” | Times Literary Supplement

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Also on Lit Hub:

Tracing the evolution of the baroque burn • Mike Gayle on the loneliness of the full-time writer • Rémy Ngamije on vaccination scarcity and the immigrant’s dream • Was Bridget Jones’s Diary the first Internet novel? • The day in a life of an 11-year-old spy in 1939 Berlin • Jean D’Amérique addresses the current state of affairs in Haiti • James Tate Hill on the painful balancing act between the personal and creative • How LeBron James become a leading advocate for educational reform • Arthur Herman gets at the heart of the Icelandic sagas’ perennial appeal • On the meaning of liberation in the face of life-threatening disease • Virginia Feito considers the horror of doppelgängers • On Christian nationalism’s influence over American terrorist Timothy McVeigh • Via Bleidner on coming-of-age in Calabasas • Encountering one of the most toxic trees in the world • The case for opening national borders • Remembering the artists who were among the early victims of Nazi death camps • SNL star Cecily Strong pays tribute to a beloved cousin • Literary writers have a lot to learn from genre writers • Eleanor Henderson in praise of “Sick Lit” • Kit Mackintosh dives into the subculture of Brooklyn drill music • What it means to evoke a place in literature • On the Victorian women whose transatlantic journeys challenged gender roles • What it takes to fictionalize a life • James Rebanks on the surprising history of farming • Elly Fishman describes earning the trust of her teenage subjects • How Christa Päffgen became Nico • How we make narratives out of predatory relationships • “The ratchetdemic educator understands that true knowledge is not given; it is discovered.” • Why Willa C. Richards set her novel in Milwaukee’s “Dahmer summer” • Marc Ribot makes the case for really, really loud music • On the early hoop dreams of Giannis Antetokounmpo