Lit Hub Weekly: January 21 - 24, 2020

• “The liberated word is a marvelous thing.” Meghan Cox Gurdon on the history—and importance—of oral storytelling. | Lit Hub
• “It was clear that a man who had broken no laws and had only spoken his mind was being actively destroyed by the public.” Howard Bryant on Colin Kaepernick and the moral bankruptcy of the NFL. | Lit Hub Politics
• “Fire chiefs are having to take time out from fires to dismiss rumors about arson being spread the conservative press.” Jennifer Mills on battling the false narratives around Australians devastating bushfires. | Lit Hub Climate Change
• “Here is a book that says, I understand.” Javier Zamora on Marcelo Hernandez Castillo’s Children of the Land, and telling the hard stories of undocumented immigration. | Lit Hub
• Parul Sehgal on American Dirt, Colm Tóibín on Garth Greenwell’s return to Bulgaria, and more of the Book Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks
• Maureen Johnson has your guide to not getting murdered in a quaint English village. | CrimeReads
• Dutch art sleuth Arthur Brand—AKA “the Indiana Jones of the Art World”—has recovered a stolen 15th century book by the Persian poet Hafez. | International Business Times
• “I need to possess them because I feel they might go away, that they are in the middle of going away.” Stephen Marche on owning every Thomas Browne first edition. | The New York Times
• Can reading literature from other countries make us better travelers? | Words Without Borders
• Overwhelmed by social media? You may want to look to Jane Austen for help. | JSTOR
• “Is it the case that to write a major best seller in today’s frenetic marketplace, one first has to attain true sociopathy?” An exciting journey through the publishing industry, circa the 2010s. | N+1
• In a profile of N.K. Jemisin, the author discusses growing up between the North and South, ambitious worldbuilding, black speculative fiction writers, and more. | The New Yorker
• On Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead, Mary McCarthy’s The Group, and the fraught political tradition of the Great American Novel. | Post45
• Virtual book clubs, IRL conversations, and more ways to find your new favorite book. | Forge
• At the annual National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, ranch hands, rodeo riders, and poets of all varieties gather to redefine what it means to be a cowboy in the modern era.| Alta
• Tracing Virginia Woolf’s recent influence on fashion, from a show at a Viennese opera house to the upcoming Met gala. | The New York Times
• “If ever a literary heroine needed the hashtag #IBelieveHer, it is [Anne’s heroine] Helen.” On reading Anne Brontë in the context of #MeToo. | The TLS
• From fiction to memoir, here are 24 new books by black authors. | Essence
• The first trailer for the BBC’s adaptation of Sally Rooney’s Normal People is the phone call to end all phone calls (and hearts, you guys). | The Hub
• “The harder you try to nail something down, the more it escapes.” Kyle Chayka on the many meanings of the word “minimalism.” | The Paris Review]
• In which Mary Norris, Comma Queen, unpacks milk (and its place at the impeachment trial). | The New Yorker

Also on Lit Hub:

Plan your year in books and birthdays with our 2020 calendar of noteworthy literary events • Adam Nicolson on the friendship between Coleridge and Wordsworth • A poem from Danez Smith’s collection Homie • Kyle Chayka on the godfather of minimalism and his case for imperfection • Emily Cooke on inhibition and actualization at a California writers’ retreat • Ayelet Waldman on the Supreme Court case that ended the unjust confinement of mental health patients • On the emotional aftershocks of Alice Adams’ most celebrated work • Post-Soviet travel on the Turkmen-­Kazakh border • Cynthia Drake retraces Weetzie Bat’s steps with Francesca Lia Block • Isaac Bashevis Singer on the particular wonders of writing in Yiddish • How a book cover gets made: creative director Nicole Caputo on episode two of Belletrist’s Studio Sessions • Luca Benavides on confronting death deepest of human fears • Christian Kiefer on grammar as meaning-maker in Garth Greenwell’s Cleanness • Everyone can be a book reviewer—but should they? Philippa Chong surveys professional book critics • Wole Soyinka on Yoruba weddings, Nigerian movies, and making traditions new • When a man took a joke in a Pepsi ad seriously, chaos ensued • Don’t worry—Bob Garfield has a plan for overhauling media literacy • Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn on tax codes, unequal education, and homegrown inequality •  James Tate Hill recommends five great audiobooks about iconic musicians • How, exactly, does neuroscience account for the way we see color? • On life as a female reporter at the turn of the century • On the rise of the Vietnamese noodle shop in Anchorage, Alaska

Best of Book Marks:

Zed author Joanna Kavenna recommends five great works of absurdist fiction, from Virginia Woolf’s Orlando to Philip K. Dick’s Ubik • Alice in Wonderland, Waiting for the Barbarians, Things Fall Apart, and more rapid-fire book recs from Isabella Hammad • Isabel Allende’s A Long Petal of the Sea, Jeanine Cummins’ American Dirt, and Emma Copley Eisenberg’s The Third Rainbow Girl all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week

New on CrimeReads:

Congrats to this year’s Edgar Award nominees! • Lisa Levy recommends seven true crime books for domestic suspense lovers • Burt Solomon leads us all in a cheer for historical mysteries that get the details right • Luke Geddes recommends ten books about obsessed audiophiles, maniacal record collectors, and crime-solving musicians • Chad Dundas on why Montana inspires so many great crime writers • Nathan Nance on the master thieves of 1970s crime fiction • Torrey Crim on Andrea Dworkin, You, and the cycle of abuse • Lee Goldberg goes searching for new terrain in a city of iconic crime novels • Tiffany Tsao on five crime books where murder is a family affair • Raymond Fleischmann on what we write about when we write about the past