Lit Hub Weekly: January 19 - 22, 2021

• Turns out there’s a long and shady history of doctors encouraging anti-vaxxers. | Lit Hub History
• To really engage with craft is to engage with how we know each other,” and 24 other essential notes on craft from Matthew Salesses. | Lit Hub Craft
• Sorry to break it to you, but scientists don’t really know if dogs actually dream. | Lit Hub Science
• America’s new favorite poet Amanda Gorman talks about the inspiration behind “The Hill We Climb,” and the Maya Angelou-inspired ring that was a gift from (who else) Oprah. | Vogue
• Please enjoy this deep dive on Emily Dickinson’s hair. | LARB
• Ibram X. Kendi recommends 10 of 2020’s best political books by Black women. | The Atlantic
• Parul Sehgal on Tove Ditlevsen’s Copenhagen Trilogy, Dwigth Garner on a biography of Lucian Freud, and more of the Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks
• “You have to remind yourself, ‘This is what I’m for, I’m not good at anything else.’ And you just have to keep going.” Read an interview with Kevin Barry. | LARB
• From manners to literature to imagination to reality itself, Charles Yu, Eileen Myles, Lauren Oyler, and others discuss life after Trump. | Harper’s
• 100 years of Patricia Highsmith: Richard Bradford on the women, and road trips, behind the creation of Ripley. | CrimeReads
• “In fiction writing, imagination creates empathy. Like organizing, writing fiction requires that you get to know people intimately.” On the connection between Stacey Abrams’ art and activism. | Bustle
• “I am interested in things that are popular. … But also, I understand what a good book is, and what an intelligent set of ideas is.” Lauren Oyler on literary criticism. | The Wall Street Journal
• More than 250 editors, agents, writers, and other members of the literary community signed an open letter urging publishers not to give book deals to former members of the Trump administration. | Los Angeles Times
• How did the Civil War get its name? | JSTOR Daily
• “Publishers need more Black translator friends.” Aaron Robertson lays out a roadmap for bringing more Black translators and international writers into America’s book industry. | Words Without Borders
• Bridgerton isn’t failing to be Jane Austen—it’s succeeding at being an escapist Regency romance. | HuffPost
• Héctor Tobar, Annette Gordon-Reed, and more discuss the disinformation crisis, and the path to a more stable democracy. | The Los Angeles Times
• “Humans’ drive toward beautiful difference is the force that subverts, again and again, the narcissists’ need to consume us all.” Considering Trump in a lineage of villains, literary and otherwise. | Vox
• “The idea is, we act consciously on the page and in life”: Zan Romanoff talks to Matthew Salesses about writing, revision, and remaking the workshop. | Hazlitt
• “If Fitzgerald writes beautifully about White American men, he falls short in writing about White American women, and he knew it.” Min Jin Lee on The Great Gatsby. | New York Review of Books

Also on Lit Hub:

That hollow feeling when Trump left? That’s because he’ll never, ever feel remorse • Matthew Redmond makes a case for reading unfinished novels • Ed Tarkington on reckoning with whiteness in contemporary Southern literature • Against the myth of the macho craft dude • Read every presidential inauguration poem ever performed (there are fewer than you think) • To write about the first woman M.D. in America, Janice P. Nimura decided to shadow another doctor… while they delivered a baby • Jonathon Lichtenstein reflects on intergenerational trauma as he travels through Berlin with his father • André Aciman reflects on being homesick for an Egypt he never knew • David Stuart Maclean on learning to appreciate Fitzgerald’s classic • Ladee Hubbard on Aunt Jemima and the problem of trying to erase racism, instead of reckoning with it • Douglas Penick considers Buddhist traditions of compassion • Simon Winchester on a brief history of land borders • Michael Woodridge on why AI can’t translate Proust—yet • To celebrate Patricia Highsmith’s birthday, we’re reliving her days at Yaddo • Say hello to the Best American Series 2021 editors: Jesmyn Ward, Ed Yong, and more

Best of Book Marks:

In honor of her 100th birthday, a look back at Patricia Highsmith’s malcontents, misogynists, and murders • Garth Greenwell talks Balzac, Giovanni’s Room, and fiction’s greatest orgasm • The Haunting of Hill House, The Yellow Wallpaper, Grimms’ Fairy Tales, and more rapid-fire book recs from Camilla Bruce • New titles from William Boyd, Nnedi Okorafor, and Janice P. Nimura all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week

New on CrimeReads:

“Doyle’s genius is not in what he reveals, but what he conceals.” Timothy Miller on the eternal mystery of Sherlock Holmes • Paula Hawkins on Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train, 70 years later • Olivia Rutigliano considers how Poe changed literature forever • Snowstorms, mountain chills, and murder with Allie Reynolds • Everything you need to know about Arsene Lupin, gentleman thief • Peter Handel on the long, unusual career of Russell James, the “Godfather of British noir” • Kate Mosse considers historical fiction and the madness of crowds • John Burley examines the intersection of medicine and crime fiction • Beth A. Bechky on the grueling work of real-life forensic science • January’s best new true crime books