Lit Hub Weekly: February 10 - 14, 2020

• “Does a country fall into fascism the way a person falls in love? Or, more accurately, in hate?” Arundhati Roy on the role of the writer in a time of rising nationalism. | Lit Hub Politics
• “Obama-the-writer came before Obama-the-candidate.” How the president’s reading shaped his writing. | Lit Hub History
• “Reading Jenny Offill’s work feels like taking flight.” Kristin Iversen talks to the author of Weather. | Lit HubCraft and Criticism
• Leah Hager Cohen on Douglas Stuart’s Shuggie Bain, Leslie Jamison on Jenny Offill’s Weather, and more of the Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks
• Your Valentine’s Day counterprogramming: Nick Kolakowski recommends 7 noir films of bullet-riddled love. | CrimeReads
• “To be a woman close to David Foster Wallace means mattering not as a specific human but as a convenient peg for a set of his ideas.” On Adrienne Miller’s In the Land of Men and powerful men in the age of print. | The New Republic
• “How could a landscape evoke such feelings?” Karl Ove Knausgaard goes into the Black Forest with the legendary artist Anselm Kiefer. | The New York Times Magazine
• Is Emma Woodhouse—Jane Austen’s “ultimate insider”—the consummate unlikable heroine? | JSTOR
• James Wood on the mythical tricksters of Daniel Kehlmann’s “daringly discontinuous” work. | The New Yorker
• “The art of poetry persists in this country; like a genetically evolved organism, it adapts.” Luis J. Rodriguez reflects on his experience as poet laureate of Los Angeles. | Los Angeles Times
• “What most tangibly binds these writers together… is a sense of solidarity in fighting for and maintaining their place in this breakthrough period.” On the swell of Asian American voices in the literary mainstream. | Gen
• Did you know Jeopardy! All-Star Ken Jennings has written 12 books? Some of his literary tastes these days include Bernardine Evaristo, Patricia Highsmith, and more. | Seattle Times
• “What’s that old lady doing there? And why does she have mush?” Best-selling children’s book author Sandra Boynon on Goodnight Moon, Ted Danson, and (not) the hippopotamus. | The Wall Street Journal
• If the tradition of “literary heroism” has largely died off in the writings of the Arab world, what does its next literary renaissance look like? | Middle East Eye
• If you like your books with a whiff of exclusivity, check out these under-the-radar (and members-only) New York City libraries. | Wall Street Journal
• Here’s a good reason to get your hands on a copy of British Vogue: Bernardine Evaristo has a new fantasy short story in the March issue. | Brittle Paper
• These 10 works of eco-fiction confront the story of our climate crisis and relationship to nature. | The Guardian
• Want to spend your Valentine’s Day reading? Here’s a “love story” (I mean, Missouri’s is Gone Girl) for every state. | The New York Times
• Jane Eyre has been translated 594 times into 57 languages—this project is studying what those translations show us about language and culture. | Poets & Writers
• Meet the fastidious, knowledgeable booksellers behind personalized book recommendation services. | The Guardian

Also on Lit Hub:

Clare Beams on Womb-Furies, hysteria, and other misnomers of the feminine condition • How Robert Frost ended up at JFK’s inauguration • Daniel Mallory Ortberg on coming to terms with his trans identity, and with the end of Golden Girls • John Freeman profiles Vivian Gornick • Amber Sparks on escaping into books about the Middle Ages • An incomplete survey of Judy Blume references in pop culture • Zan Romanoff on Adrienne Miller’s memoir of life with literary men • Douglas Stuart’s favorite working-class Scottish literature • Jenn Shapland considers the objects that make love visible • Denise Riley on the temporal dislocation of profound loss • Alena Dillon on defying expectations of piety in the holy orders • Vivian Gornick on the solace and revelation of Natalia Ginzburg • Failsafe reading recommendations for your non-reader friend in need • Adrienne Miller on David Foster Wallace and literary life in the 1990s • Does Bong Joon-Ho’s historic Oscar win signal real change for the Academy Awards? • Dina Nayeri on novel that celebrates—and mourns—pre-revolutionary Iran • Leila Aboulela recommends five books with a decidedly mystical dimension • Sarisha Kurup on mapping private loss over public tragedy • Hannah Rothschild recommends seven books that “exemplify the long and glorious tradition of British Social Satires” • Jess Kidd on books that blur lines between the living and dead • What the Obamas’ portraits reveal about the changing American art canon • P Carl on his father’s material afterlife • Andrea Bernstein on the Trumps, the Kushners, and a family tradition of corruption and grift • Diane Rehm: an intimate view into medically assisted death • How did Louis C.K. get away with it for so long? • Remembering Harry Matthews, poet and friend • In renouncing the myths of old California, did Joan Didion deflect responsibility for her family’s relationship to the land? • Happy Valentine’s Day—a holiday you can blame on Geoffrey Chaucer and his poem about horny birds! • Amy Bonnaffons recommends eight weird literary romances • Chinelo Okparanta recalls the lingering power of a first crush

Best of Book Marks:

From Miriam Toews’ Women Talking to Tara Westover’s Educated, ten booksellers rave about their favorite reads • Vivian Gornick recommends five books that made a difference in her writing life, from Little Virtues to The House of Mirth • New titles from Jenny Offill, Joshua Hammer, and Daniel Kehlmann all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week • It’s not too late to tell someone how you really feel: from Dept. of Speculation to Normal People, here are the books to give your person for Valentine’s Day (depending on what you’re trying to tell them)

New on CrimeReads:

Steph Post and Alex Segura on the difficult art of ending a series • February’s must-read psychological thrillers • Kelly Braffet thinks crime fiction could learn a thing or two from fantasy worldbuilding • The best international crime fiction to read this February • Kate Winkler Dawson takes us inside a turn of the century investigation where forensics was key • Calamity Jane: nonconformist icon, or talkative alcoholic? • Long before there were true crime podcasts, there was Charles Dickens’ Barnaby Rudge • Zach Vasquez on 5 cinematic visions of Romeo and Juliet • Molly Odintz gives us a crime reader’s antidote to Valentine’s Day • Olivia Rutigliano recommends 15 crime films where love comes as a surprise