Lit Hub Weekly: February 24 - 28, 2020

• “She does not ask to be loved; like Jane Eyre she demands it.” Rachel Vorona Cote on Ramona Quimby and having the right to be “too much.” | Lit Hub Literary Criticism
• “I try to hide how unreal those two deaths are to me. No, not unreal. It’s just I can’t make them matter.” Elizabeth Tallent on death, silence and the intimacies of sadness. | Lit Hub Memoir
• A poet’s glimpses of Franco’s Spain: When Langston Hughes went to report on the Spanish Civil War. | Lit Hub History
• Alexandra Harris on Hilary Mantel’s The Mirror and the Light, Parul Sehgal on Hilary Leichter’s Temporary, and more of the Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks
• Ashawnta Jackson on how Isaac Hayes’ soundtrack to Shaft ushered in an era of iconic Blaxploitation cinema. | CrimeReads
• With “the grim final chapter of Cromwell’s story,” literary icon Hilary Mantel is back. | The New York Times
• Though the circumstances around Edgar Allan Poe’s death are mysterious, some have suggested suicide. A new scholarly study used computational analysis of Poe’s work to argue against that theory. | Study Finds
• Former French prime minister Francois Fillon and his wife, Penelope, are on trial for fraud and, somehow, a literary magazine played a part in their fall from grace. | Los Angeles Times
• A pressing question for our times: Have we . . . murdered the apostrophe? | BBC
• From Mary Robinson to Robert Jay Lifton, these authors are offering hope in the face of climate crisis. | Yale Climate Connections
• “Space enough to run or shout at any given moment and a front row seat to some of the hardest truths of American history.” Jericho Brown, Ada Limón, and more poets discuss living in writing in the American South. | Southern Review of Books
• “One thing we often do with narratives of sexual assault is sort their respective parties into different temporalities: it seems we are interested in perpetrators’ futures and victims’ pasts.” Lili Loofbourow on the post-traumatic novel. | NYRB
• “The immigrant’s first real introduction to surviving in English is profanity.” Cathy Park Hong on “bad” English as heritage. | Buzzfeed News
• Piecing together the fragments of Lorraine Hansberry’s personal life, from her words and the words of those who knew her. | Autostraddle
• Don’t sleep on the collection of old menus, and more insider tips for navigating the New York Public Library. | Vulture
• “I have lost faith in the idea that there might be anything any individual can say or write that will change the minds of people who, consciously or subconsciously, believe that women matter less than men.” Emily Gould on shame, fame, Gawker, and the Kimmel debacle. | The Cut
• “I’m not shy. I have had sex with so many men I literally cannot count. I once estimated it must be about fifty thousand.” Samuel Delaney and Jeremy O. Harris walk (and talk) through Times Square. | The Paris Review
• Filmmaker Dee Rees discusses the challenges of adapting Didion for the screen. | Elle
• Lynn Steger Strong on the “delusions around meritocracy continue to pervade the writing world”—and the stark financial realities of being a writer. | The Guardian
• Mary Gaitskill reflects on her love for the “incredibly dick-centric” Henry Miller. | Vulture

Also on Lit Hub:

Erik Larson on writing wartime life during the London Blitz • Antonia Angress discovers a secret literary love in the margins of a Patricia Highsmith classic • Laura van den Berg writes in response to the art of Ria Patricia Röder • Colum McCann on drinking with John Berger • A glimpse inside the best summer of Emily Dickinson’s life • Pod Save America’s Dan Pfeiffer lays out a plan for the future of democracy • Sierra Crane Murdoch, on the trail of a murder with Lissa Yellow Bird • Lessons from interviewing almost 300 authors • Jerry Mitchell revisits a dark episode in the struggle for civil rights • Gretel Ehrlich on Yuri Rythkeu’s eulogy for the Arctic • Sylvia Plath and the myriad women who know what she went through • Jean Genet on the hidden heart of Jean Cocteau • Malcolm Harris’ reading list for making sense of a bullshit society • Emily Temple watchedYou’ve Got Mail for the first time ever and has strong feelings about it • Claire Pooley on what it meant to write her way up from rock bottom • Mahogany L. Browne on Audre Lorde and Black writers as agents of change • Mikki Kendall on the neoliberal misunderstanding of black education • When America’s most famous monthly took on its most famous tycoon • How the 1980s soap opera craze changed the entertainment industry forever • Marcus Mumford reflects on John Steinbeck’s lessons in justice and power • Zee Francis goes deep into the queer subtext of Willa Cather’s My Ántonia • How city planning wiped out New York’s “Little Syria” • February’s most beautiful book covers • The Lit Hub staff’s favorite stories of the month

Best of Book Marks:

Before you see the film, here’s Sir Walter Scott’s classic review of Jane Austen’s Emma • Vanessa Hua talks Little Women, Parasite, Atonement, and more • Adam Sisman recommends five great books about con artists • A look back at John Steinbeck’s five most iconic works, from Of Mice and Men to East of Eden • New titles from Colum McCann, Erik Larson, Cathy Park Hong, and more all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week

New on CrimeReads:

Nancy Coco celebrates the many cozy mysteries of the Pacific Northwest • Peter Swanson examines the use—and misuse–of mental health disorders in crime fiction • Ryan Steck keeps a running count of the year’s best action thrillers (so far) • Joseph Finder reflects on the joys of reading about dysfunctional rich people committing crimes • S.L. McInnis recounts the tale of an obscure crime that inspired generations of storytellers • Kathleen Barber gives us a reading list for logging off • Laura James on the history of beauty as a legal defense • In case you’re wondering, Elizabethan playwright Ben Jonson was, in fact, a murderer • Gary Phillips wonders, what if real-life arctic explorer Matthew Henson had a chance to solve a murder?