Lit Hub Weekly: July 15 – 19, 2019
THE BEST OF THE LITERARY INTERNET
- “The book itself opens, and closes, with life, continuing.” Michael Cunningham on the novel that would become Mrs Dalloway. | Lit Hub
- Alt-right ideas have become “imaginable and utterable”; Alexandra Minna Stern looks at the pseudo-anthropologists who made it possible. | Lit Hub
- Colson Whitehead as the steward of painful histories, Svetlana Alexievich’s enchanted naturalism, Chuck Klosterman’s curious fictions, and more of the Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks
- Bookseller Scott Montgomery’s guide to Craig Johnson’s Walt Longmire series (just in time for the Longmire Days fan fest in Wyoming). | CrimeReads
- “I’ve been thinking about white male privilege, and I wonder if you think about yours or your son’s?” Claudia Rankine asks directly (and indirectly). | The New York Times Magazine
- What it’s like to spend the night in Hunter S. Thompson’s writing cabin—which you can now rent on Airbnb. | The Guardian, Airbnb
- “Walking ought to be among the most democratic of activities. Look closely at the genre, though, and you’ll find that the writer-walker has a way of claiming a surprisingly exclusive status.” On Beneath My Feet: Writers On Walking, and the essential smugness of writers who walk. | The Atlantic
- “We write [these] stories to be cautionary tales, not instruction manuals.” Dystopian fiction writers discuss the dystopian immigration crisis. | The Washington Post
- “Is it a good idea to invite someone into your home whose occupation it is to observe everything?” On the perils of the writer as houseguest. | The New York Times
- “What is lost when a language disappears?” Four stories of Indigenous communities in California fighting to revitalize their languages. | Emergence Magazine
- “Every generation is a bridge between something that’s past, and something that’s coming.” An interview with Wendell Berry. | The New Yorker
- “She shocks with the truth: it runs like blood through her every sentence.” Deborah Levy on Elizabeth Hardwick’s “hard, glinting, sophisticated, switched-on female intelligence.” | The Paris Review
- “What would happen to the global economy if all the women on the planet suddenly decided: I don’t care if you think I’m fuckable.” Laura Lippman on not dieting. | Longreads
- Because the Summer of Scam is eternal (and because writing is the greatest scam of all), here’s a story about a conman turned true crime writer. | The Atlantic
- Here’s the story of the tiny book that flew to the moon with Buzz Aldrin (and might still be there if it weren’t for those lunar sticklers at NASA). | The Boston Globe
- From Ted Chiang stories to a Nnedi Okorafor trilogy, here are some books to get you excited about the moon landing anniversary—as if you needed any more reason. | Chicago Tribune
- A collection of classic moon poems to read on the 50th anniversary of the first crewed moon landing this weekend. | Poets
- “Even if we accept the idea that we all (or most of us) want to become clearer and more interesting writers, is grammar truly the key to such improvements?” Jonathan Russell Clark is against style guides—sort of. | Vulture
- Good news for under-prepared travelers: a number of airport bookstores have a “read and return” program that will give you a 50% refund on a book purchased at one of their stores within six months. | Lifehacker
Also on Lit Hub:
Colson Whitehead on writer’s block, John Carpenter, and Inner Space exploration • 40 writer’s writers readers should read • Maris Kreizman talks to John Waters about taking LSD at 70, Clarence Thomas, and reading bad reviews • What Hemingway cut from For Whom the Bell Tolls • Richard Russo on the power of regret • A primer on tasting chocolate like a professional (seriously) • Leni Zumas on The Judas Rose • When bad presidents misbehave do they always get away with it? • Sarah Parcak on how space technology is revolutionizing archaeology • Kevin Alexander recommends six funny, unflinching, and unsparing cooking memoirs • Emily Guendelsberger on the high human cost of low-wage work at an Amazon warehouse • Read a new poem by Margaret Atwood • Jon Gertner on the disappearing ice sheet of Kangerlussuaq, Greenland • On the fine (and difficult) art of science writing • How contemporary poetry treats the old myths of the American railroad •
Mukoma Wa Ngugi on the poem that made him fall in love with words • CJ Hauser has some pretty convincing evidence that her niece is the reincarnation of Shirley Jackson • How does a lobster wind up with the Pepsi logo “tattooed” on its shell? • 11 literary parties we’re sad to have missed • In honor of the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, some lunar perspectives: What if we had gotten stuck up there? • A poet and a novelist discuss the literary allure of outer space • Gaze upon some heroic (and very good) space dogs • On Gemini, the human spaceflight program that made Apollo possibleBest of Book Marks:
New on CrimeReads:
“The producers of Miami Vice had pulled off the Florida dream: They told a lie that came true” • Nile Cappello on Kate Warne, America’s first female detective and spy• Cuban crime legend Leonardo Padura talks noir, history, and Miami-Havana relations with Alex Segura • Zach Vasquez on the pantheon of directors keeping Hollywood noir • Sarah Weinman on the life of police-beat-reporter-turned-
