Lit Hub Weekly: February 28 – March 4, 2022

• “What happens to language in wartime?” Ilya Kaminsky on Ukrainian, Russian, and the language of war. | Lit Hub Ukraine

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• “You can have a life or you can do some writing, but not both at once.” Margaret Atwood considers the burning questions of the writing life. | Lit Hub Craft

• Kathryn Davis considers the “delectable inexplicability” of Lost and coming to terms with the unknowable. | Lit Hub TV

• Kathleen Stone recommends books by writers who debuted between ages 60 and 93. | Lit Hub Reading Lists

• Yoko Tawada’s Scattered All Over the Earth, Claire-Louise Bennett’s Checkout 19, and Harvey Fierstein’s I Was Better Last Night all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week. | Book Marks

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• Jane Cockram recommends seven crime novels in which families are destroyed by their own secrets. | CrimeReads

• W.S. Merwin’s recommendations—of five books, and five poems—to add to the libraries of nuclear submarines. | The Merwin Conservancy

• Ukrainian writer Andrey Kurkov discusses life in Kyiv right now, his novel Grey Bees, and his hopes for the future. | The New York Times

• Barbara VanDenburgh outlines books with insight into the political history of Ukraine and Russia. | USA Today

• Jane Goodall and Margaret Atwood discuss climate justice, feminism, and finding hope in terrifying times. | Harper’s Bazaar

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• Read a new story by Lauren Groff. | Granta

• “For me, Yiddish will never be easy, but I can read it, with effort. It has ceased to be a wall, barring me from history; instead, it became a door.” Molly Crabapple on the joy of Yiddish books. | NYRB

• “Reality seemed like a cheap copy of Tokarczuk’s world.” Marek Makowski reads The Books of Jacob with—and against—the Riverhead Reader’s Companion. | Los Angeles Review of Books

• “We walk all night. There is no end to the cars, no end to the people walking the other way.” Elena Kostyuchenko’s dispatch from Poland and Ukraine. | n+1

• These Ukrainian books are available in English translation. | Book Riot

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• “Ulysses is a symbol for all the wrongheaded and frustrating ways we talk and think about the way art is made and received and appreciated.” Jessa Crispin on the creation(s) of Ulysses. | The Baffler

• Lydia Kiesling talks to Nicole Chung about establishing a freelance career, revision, and fleeing her home to finish a novel. | The Atlantic

• A new series of Dr. Seuss-inspired books will feature diverse authors and illustrators. | AP

• Srikantha Reddy considers the overlooked brilliance of the poet Margaret Danner, the first Black woman on Poetry’s editorial staff. | Poetry

• From Sula to Purple Rain and family photos, Marlon James lists some of his favorite things. | Wall Street Journal

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• Ruth Weiner, publisher of Triangle Square Books for Young Readers, discusses what makes a great children’s book. | Words Without Borders

Also on Lit Hub:

On the Ukrainian poets who lived and died under Soviet suppression • Newly translated poetry from Ukraine • Stanislav Aseyev on life in occupied Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, circa 2015 • Sarah Polley on grief, girlhood, and scoliosis •  Harvey Fierstein recalls his favorite late-night talk show appearances • Why Sarah Moss likes knitting and running (which are nothing like writing) • Is adaptation a feminine act? • The cerebral world of Antonio di Benedetto • Learning about human senses through the animal kingdom • Considering the linguistics of rap • Sherry Turkle on her mother’s secret-keeping • Megan O’Rourke on the self-dissolving nature of chronic illness • Revisiting “bad-boy celebrity photographer” Robert Mapplethorpe • On the shaky foundations of America’s Constitution • Instructions for dating a fellow writer • On Charles Dickens’s elusive, unstable reputation • How the Beat generation became fashion icons • Experiencing kenosis in the poetry of Donne and Shakespeare • Why are children hungry for scientific explanations? • Former Nike director Merl Code reveals the “underground fight club” of college basketball • Ruth Brandon on Marcel Duchamp’s first three great rejections • Conversations with the children of the disappeared from Argentina’s “dirty war” • On Rodrigo Toscano and the poetry of labor • How basic healthcare became big business in America • Maël Renouard considers the internet’s relentless deluge of images