Lit Hub Weekly: July 10 – 14, 2017

• Chinese dissident and writer Liu Xiaobo, who “learned to challenge received wisdom of every kind, keeping for himself only the ideas that could pass the test of rigorous independent examination,” has died at 61. | The New York Review of Books, The Washington Post
• “Ballet seemed to give Zelda what she was seeking at the time—a mode of pure expression.” On Zelda Fitzgerald’s “frequently overlooked” obsession with ballet. | The New Yorker
• “It kind of did feel like the end of the world, though not in the way I originally meant it.” Heidi Julavits visits Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty with her family. | The New York Times Magazine
• On an exhibit detailing Octavia Butler’s life story, drawn from “8,000 manuscripts, letters and photographs, and an additional 80 boxes of ephemera.” | NPR
• From Jenny Zhang to a posthumous James Salter collection, a bounty of books to look forward to in the second half of 2017. | The Millions
• His hates were extravagant, his traumas ornate, his contradictions so vicious and monstrously magnified: Tobi Haslett on Chester B. Himes. | 4Columns
• “You should write whatever you want to write. Once you label it fiction, it’s fiction.” An interview with Rachel Khong. | The Riveter
• The longlist for the 2017 First Novel Prize has been announced. | The Center for Fiction
• “He says that people form bonds at these places—but it’s not personal.” Short fiction by Lydia Davis. | New York Tyrant
• The unexamined life is often entirely worth living: An excerpt from The Epiphany Machine by David Burr Gerrard. | Guernica
• The most recent issue of Poetry magazine—“a pause to assess the state of Asian American literature”—is now online. | Poetry Foundation
• 27 female authors who “rule sci-fi and fantasy right now,” from Rainbow Rowell to Nnedi Okorafor. | Entertainment Weekly
• “How does this 1920s novel hewn from reflections on racial terrorism remain so terribly relevant, and how do those who worship whiteness continue to sow and feed on fear?” On Jean Toomer’s Cane. | Lapham’s Quarterly
• Dana Canedy has been named the next administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes, the first woman and first person of color to hold the position. | Poynter
• In a seemingly interminable saga, Milo Yiannopoulos—after self-publishing his controversial book on July 4th—is suing Simon & Schuster for $10 million dollars. | Vulture

Also on Lit Hub: 

Why are we so unwilling to take Sylvia Plath at her word? · How to be a writer on social media: Advice from Roxane Gay, Alexander Chee, Celeste Ng, and Adam M. Grant · Who cares what straight people think? On the uncertain state of queer narratives · Game of clones: On our fixation with dystopic doppelgängers · Brian Platzer on the responsibility of writers to write the other · A Night with Virginia Woolf at America’s Strangest Literary Hotel · From Lydia Davis to George Saunders to Sofia Samatar, 11 very short short stories · Dystopia is realism: How the best science fiction remixes the present · So you’ve decided to write: A new summer series on writing from Terry McDonell · Who will tell the tales of American fascism? On the truth-telling of Roberto Bolaño · A night with Virginia Woolf at America’s strangest literary hotel

So good that I don’t want to talk about it here: Jonathan Franzen on Alice Munro’s Runaway · The best-reviewed books of 2017 (s0 far) · “Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to.” On Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried · “The earth is mostly just a boneyard. But pretty in the sunlight.” A 1985 Los Angeles Times review of Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove · “Whether he is a trustworthy prophet or not, Mr. Vonnegut is a sharp-eyed satirist.” A 1952 New York Times review of Kurt Vonnegut’s first novel · “Approaching the unspeakable through the diminutive” in Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel, Maus · Infidelity, arson, Thoreau, and more: the best-reviewed books of the week