Lit Hub Weekly: January 22 - 25, 2019

• What’s a doctor’s best medicine? If we’re talking about physician burnout—it might be reading. | American Medical Association
• “Eating alone is one of life’s greatest pleasures, time to consider the life-imitating-life issues.” Ecco publisher Daniel Halpern’s food diary includes oysters, Shake Shack, and homemade eggs. | Grub Street
• “Like other bilingual literatures, Deaf literature has the potential for making us think twice about how and why we write.” On writing Deaf literature. | Literary Studies
• Literary criticism or defamation? A Chinese film critic lost $11,800 in a lawsuit over a review. | Sixth Tone
• On comp titles, “the most important data that no one outside of publishing has ever heard of,” and how they keep the publishing industry overwhelmingly white. | LARB
• Justin Alvarez on Thomas Glynn’s unpublished, 1,800-page novel about the inmates of Dannemora prison. | The New Yorker
• “We need to imagine the future in order to survive it.” Charlie Jane Anders on why science fiction writers need to write about climate change. | Tor
• “When war and conflict edge closer, Beckett’s writing becomes strangely real and visceral.” On Beckett’s political imagination. | IAI TV
• “We uncapped our pens, and the signing game began”: Billy Collins shares a loving memory of Mary Oliver. | The Paris Review
• A newly-discovered note may finally prove that the much-disputed portrait of young Jane Austen is, in fact, the novelist herself. | The Guardian
• “A spider once lived on earth”: On tropes, tricks and themes in traditional African tales. | The Mantle
• “It is hard, in encountering the fiction of MacKenzie Bezos, to untangle the work of a reader from the scrutiny of the voyeur.” On MacKenzie Bezos’ novels. | The New Yorker
• “Making time for fiction helps me to stay out of the news bubble and ultimately enables me to be more engaged as a citizen.” Laila Lalami makes the case for fiction as an antidote to Trump burnout. | The Nation
• “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t also fall down a rabbit hole (one I absolutely don’t regret) of watching videos of swearing parrots.” 18 translations on the frustrations and joys of translating humor. | Words Without Borders
• “Nice change from what’s going on in the world”: Some furloughed workers are finding solace in reading. | The Washington Post

Also on Lit Hub:

“We still don’t know all of what Plath left behind.” On a chance encounter at the grave of Sylvia Plath and lessons from Sylvia Plath’s newly discovered short story • Which is the most literary state? A quantitative examination each state’s prestigious prize haul • Diary of a government shutdown: a furloughed worked watches 24 hours of CNN, in search of the real story • Jami Attenberg and Maurice Ruffin in conversation • On the overlooked eroticism of Mary Oliver • A decorated WWII veteran returns to the Jim Crow South: an account of the blinding of Sgt. Isaac Woodard • Kristen Arnett on navigating life as a writer and a librarian • David Treuer on the myth of an Edenic, pre-Columbian “New World” • Jealousy, guilt, and royal rifts: a reading list of sororal friction, from Edith Wharton to J. Courtney Sullivan • Dani Shapiro on unraveling the mystery of her conception • You’re welcome, Hollywood: free and entirely correct casting expertise for yet-to-be-adapted literary classics • Friends and coworkers reflect on the legacy of poet-publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti, in advance of his 100th birthday • A brief literary history of Davos, where tuberculosis and writer’s block were cured, if not global catastrophe • When a very small press wins a Pulitzer: Paul Harding looks back on Tinkers, ten years on • Benjamin Dreyer, the internet’s chief copy editor, on the bad writing habits he wishes you would quit • Daisy Johnson on the limits of writing the wholly new • In honor of her 137th birthday, an examination of what Virginia Woolf was like as a child (for a start, her nickname was “The Goat”) • On mourning a parent, with the help of Virginia Woolf • Reflections on aging and life from Diana Athill, who died on Wednesday at the age of 101

Best of Book Marks:

New on CrimeReads:

Nominations for the 2019 Edgar Awards are out! • Wil Medearis looks at 7 crime novels featuring America’s original swindle: the crooked land deal • Steph Post breaks down the greatest, most imaginative cons and gaffs in the history of carnival life • Crime and the City visits one of America’s greatest crime fiction meccas: New Orleans • Nick Rennison guides us through the many fictional detectives who were Sherlock’s contemporaries • 30 years of Harry Bosch: Bruce Riordan on Michael Connelly, Harry Bosch, and the ever-changing city of Los Angeles • Krysten Kusek Lewis recommends 8 thrillers featuring scandals, secrets, and not-so-nice people • Chris Hammer looks at Australia’s crime-writing boom, and finds out what makes Aussie noir so darned appealing • James Lee Burke talks crime writing and Louisiana with CrimeReads editor Dwyer Murphy• Radha Vatsal looks at the casual racism and muddled politics of France’s biggest cop show