Lit Hub Weekly: January 17-20, 2023

• In guns we trust: Paul Auster asks why America is the most violent country in the Western world. | Lit Hub Politics    

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• Why Janet Malcom, after years of aversion to writing about herself, finally did: “She knew better than most that the only thing scarier than writing about oneself is letting someone else wrest control of the narrative.” | Lit Hub Criticism

• “Hope is one of the most precious drugs doctors have at their disposal.” Neurosurgeon Henry Marsh reflects on his own diagnosis. | Lit Hub Health

• When Norman Mailer met John F. Kennedy (and JFK probably lied about liking his books). | Lit Hub History

• Bret Easton Ellis’s The Shards, Colm Tóibín’s A Guest at the Feast, and Grady Hendrix’s How to Sell a Haunted House all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week. | Book Marks

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• The best international crime novels coming out this month. | CrimeReads

• “Literature departments seem to provide a haven for studying books, but they may have painted themselves into a corner.” Merve Emre on academia and literary criticism. | The New Yorker

• “His dispatches have the impact almost of a serial novel that is being written in installments as the action takes place and before the author knows the ending.” How Hanif Kureishi is communicating with the world after a severe spinal injury. | The New York Times

• Xochitl Gonzalez makes the case for modern social climbing. | The Atlantic

• “Acker’s writing reads like a blueprint for an imagined and still unrealized future. What would the world have to be like for Kathy Acker to exist?” Laura Tanenbaum on the unclassifiable Kathy Acker. | The New Republic

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• What do trans- and anti-humanists agree on? That the impending extinction of the human race is a good thing. | Air Mail

• “What makes a potential wartime slogan?” Maria Sonevytsky considers the phrase “Good evening, we are from Ukraine.” | Los Angeles Review of Books

• “To my surprise, the first half of Spare turns out to be a fascinating literary venture.” Laura Miller makes the case for Prince Harry’s memoir as good literature. | Slate

• Want to stay up to date on the HarperCollins Union strike? There’s a newsletter for that! | HarperCollins Union

• “I have decided I like the way I look and I’m the expert. Who has spent more time looking at me than I have?” Laura Lippman on turning 60 and learning to trust her body. | Oldster

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• “I think aspiring writers need to realize that your dream first book might not be what you actually publish.” An interview with Debutiful creator Adam Vitcavage. | Electric Lit

• “As the new film makes clear, Hurston’s work as an anthropologist was at least as important as her literary output.” Chris Vognar on PBS’s Zora Neale Hurston: Claiming a Space. | Los Angeles Times

• “How did so many people convince themselves that ‘pony’ and ‘horse’ are the same word, or, at least, close enough?” Christine Smallwood on Sold a Story and the failure of the “balanced-literary” method. | NYRB

• “These attacks on drag shows and performers strike at the heart of our rights to gather, read, and perform together.” On drag queen story hours in public libraries and free expression. | PEN America

• “To desire is to make ourselves vulnerable; to come up empty-handed hurts.” Benjamin Schaefer considers professional jealousy and the power of embracing disappointment. | Electric Lit

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• Fast food and short stories: Aimée Gasston considers the importance of food in Katherine Mansfield’s work. | Public Domain Review

Also on Lit Hub:

Rachel Maddow considers how cell phone spyware threatens privacy and democracy • Kathryn Ma on writing (un)reliable optimistic narrators • Josh Riedel on leaning into marginalia • Anne Waldman recounts her time at Bennington College • What koalas can teach us about solitude and companionship • Diagnosing King Tut, thousands of years after his death • Why Daniel Torday didn’t write an acknowledgements page • Tsitsi Dangarembga on writing against empire • Exploring the lives of animals with impressive lifespans, from the Greenland shark to the lobster • Freeman’s contributors share their most anticipated books of 2023 • Marisa Crane considers the finer points of experimental fiction • Jared Yates Sexton reflects on growing up with conspiracy theories and end-times prophecy • An economist debunks the coconut myth