Lit Hub Weekly: July 12 - 16

• What Borges’ science fiction got right about the importance of forgetting, according to child psychiatry. | Lit Hub Science

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• Searching for Moby-Dick (and the elusive truths of America’s pastime): Rick White goes deep on Bill James, Herman Melville, and the whaleness of Whiteyball. | Lit Hub Criticism

• “I said, ‘Oh, all right, but I’m not singing.’” Read an oral history of the epically terrible Star Wars holiday special (which obviously achieved cult status after George Lucas tried to bury it). | Lit Hub Film

• Dispatches from a microlanguage: Thora Hjörleifsdóttir on the art of thriving in Icelandic. | Lit Hub

• Sunjeev Sahota’s China Room, Matt Bell’s Appleseed, Anuk Arudpragasam’s A Passage North, and Kristen Radtke’s Seek You all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week. | Book Marks

• “No one is ever going to take care of you.” Susan Orlean gets real about the business side of being a writer. | Medium

• Nikole Hannah-Jones discusses her plans to “even the playing field” for HBCUs as a faculty member at Howard University. | Los Angeles Times

• Megha Majumdar recommends books that have made a personal impact. | Elle

• Read this oral history of a previously unreleased Prince album. | Rolling Stone

• “I sat back down and realized there was page after page of evidence that the federal government played a huge role in shaping the comic book industry during World War Two.” Dr. Paul S. Hirsch on the research process behind his new book and the history of comic book publishing. | Chicago Review of Books

• Why are so many men reluctant to read books by women? MA Sieghart investigates. | The Guardian

• “In addition to making me want to become a writer, my time in France also taught me to think about myself, as an Asian, in a different way.” David Hoon Kim considers place, language, and friendship. | NYRB

• Kiese Laymon considers the challenges of writing about racism, what it means to practice self-care, and the meaning of love. | Los Angeles Review of Books

• “Pleasure is no enemy of discipline.” On Virginia Woolf and the Idiosyncratic School of reading. | The Hedgehog Review

• “The book was good. But who was Stokes Prickett, and how did this person get my parents’ address?” Adam Dalva investigates the identity of a mysterious, pseudonymous author. | The New Yorker

• Anjali Enjeti on the “routine” of writing with chronic pain. | Poets & Writers

• “What feels indispensable about poetry is its ability to let the reader, me, inhabit an imaginative space.” Kathleen Ossip on the possibility of poetry. | McSweeney’s

• “Slowly, story after story, my tongue unfurled. I went from mute to voluble.” Igiaba Scego on attending school in Italy, and finding her voice through fiction (translated by Aaron Robertson). | Words Without Borders

• This Joy Harjo-collected anthology, featuring 47 poems by Native Nations poets, urges readers to rethink America’s cultural storytelling. | Ploughshares

• In praise of Laurie Colwin’s sneakily subversive, morally ambiguous, and intensely delightful novels. | New York Time

Also on Lit Hub:

Tahmima Anam on the serious business of being funny • Sunjeev Sahota asks if belonging is only for the privileged • Shirley Jackson writes to her parents about navigating literary fame and financial insecurity • Literary icon William H. Gass on the “small problem” of adultery • Savala Nolan reflects on the life-threatening experience of giving birth as a Black woman in America • Helen Ellis on being the only lady at the poker table • Why Joyce Maynard’s new novel will sound familiar to readers of her nonfiction • “Heresy allows a writer to write freely” • The lived reality of traveling the country by freight train • Elizabeth Greenwood on the people who seek relationships with the incarcerated • Rae Nudson considers how makeup can strengthen the oppressed • David Steinberg digs into the comedic success of Jerry Seinfeld • Rather than turn inward in response to the refugee crisis, Sicily ushered in a new era of Italian politics • Katie Crouch suggests listening to your favorite song to figure out your novel’s plot • Chloe Shaw on learning grief and companionship from her childhood dog • A poem by Morgan Parker • MLB All-Star C.C. Sabathia reflects on baseball’s say-nothing culture • David Searcy considers how photograph allows us to bring back our dead • Henry Mance plumbs the depths of animal emotions • Heidi Boghosian on the spiral of silence and self-censorship in an era of government surveillance • Genevieve Plunkett on friendship, tourism, and equine grief • Lily Meyer on the mind-expanding practice of translating Claudia Ulloa Donoso •   Kristen Radtke on the process of translating her  graphic nonfiction book into an audiobook • How a small French newspaper started the Tour de France • A look at the anti-abortion movement’s long game • Shiori Ito on her widely publicized sexual assault case • Sylvain Tesson on channeling the serenity of the Tao