Lit Hub Weekly: July 29 - August 2, 2019

• “Bigfoot’s deepest significance is what it tells us about ourselves.” John Zada on our relentless quest for Bigfoot. | Lit Hub
• “It honestly feels like an author’s Fyre Festival up in here”: on the life and death of indie press Curbside Splendor. | Lit Hub
• “The wall fell back. The roof of the barracks lifted. Midori’s face was brighter than daylight.” Brandon Shimoda on finding his grandfather’s photo in a Japanese internment camp. | Lit Hub
• Jia Tolentino as the voice of a micro generation, P. T. Barnum the Prince of Humbugs, Daisy Johnson on Karen Russell’s dark fabulism, and more of the reviews you need to read this week. | Book Marks
• Dystopian islands, experiments gone awry, and shocking twists: the CrimeReads staff recommends all the crime and mystery you need to read this August. | CrimeReads
• Queer, subversive, and relevant: why Moby-Dick is “the novel for our times” (including the fact that you can listen, for free, to Tilda Swinton reading the first chapter). | The Guardian
• “Every culture is built on defense mechanisms. We try to suppress everything that’s not comfortable for us.” Read a profile of “Poland’s preëminent novelist,” Olga Tokarczuk. | The New Yorker
• What true crime (and true crime book) took place in your home state, you ask? Here is a map with the answer you seek. | The New York Times
• “I have been told by two different people that they fell in love with their partner because of their discussion of the semicolon.” Cecelia Watson on the semicolon, beloved and maligned. | Longreads
• “Marcel Proust, after countless rejections, reportedly paid a publishing house to publish Swann’s Way. Miracles do happen.” On the pros and cons of self-publishing. | San Francisco Chronicle
• Douglas Preston, president of the Authors Guild, on the recent surge in bookselling scams—counterfeiting, plagiarism, piracy and more. | The Los Angeles Times
• On the resurgence of Filipino food writer Doreen Gamboa Fernandez, “a literary stylist to rival M.F.K. Fisher and a groundbreaking culinary ethnographer,” who died in 2002. | The New York Times
• Italian chemist and author Primo Levi was born 100 years ago. His efforts to remember the victims and survivors of concentration camps and mass displacement resonate still. | DW
• “By focusing on trust, can we harness the power we channeled in being believed? Can trust be the cornerstone for a new model of power?” Saskia Vogel on private pain, public rage, and power. | Granta
• Fantastical, interplanetary, infinite: are these the best libraries in fiction? | The Guardian
• There’s a newly translated John Steinbeck story about a chef and his cat—but also, was John Steinbeck a spy? | The Hub, The Daily Beast
• “Catcher in the Rye is not only no longer beloved, it has become something even more tragic: uncool.” Dana Czapnik on how to read Salinger’s classic coming-of-age tale today. | The Guardian
• In which 31 poets recommend 31 books of poetry—one for every day in August. | Electric Literature
• A first-edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone with two typos (including a misspelling of “Philosopher” on the back cover) sold at auction for £28,500. | CNN

Also on Lit Hub:

What happens when Satanists try to build a public monument? • A.E. Stallings: “I am robustly optimistic about poetry, but that is maybe the only thing I am optimistic about” • The perils of designing a cover for a novel you truly love: Oliver Munday on redesigning Fleur Jaeggy’s 1989 masterpiece Sweet Days of Discipline • What can a book do in the face of war? Rachel Seiffert considers Svetlana Alexievich’s Last Witnesses • Stephanie Jimenez on learning to write girls with agency in fiction • Eight paranormal books to read right now, from the uncanny to the just plain weird • On the evolution of fatness in society • Angelique Stevens on what her mom’s library truly meant • Read a brief (and awful) history of the lobotomy • Using an inner cheerleader to find writerly confidence • On the “field of ruins” order. The story of Hitler’s last desperate plan to destroy Paris • Sarah Elaine Smith on the art monster, late capitalism edition • The utopian dream and surveillance nightmare of electronic money • Leland Cheuk on the value of “method writing” • Suzanne Conklin Akbari on the encyclopedic genius of Melville’s masterpiece • How to spend a literary long weekend in Hartford, CT, more than just where Wallace Stevens walked to work! • James Tate Hill recommends five great audiobooks to make your summer road trip more entertaining • Walter Benjamin on the meaning of “barbaric” after WWI •  On the life of the first Chinese woman in America • The Lit Hub staff picks their favorite stories from July and recommends these August books

Best of Book Marks:

5 Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books to Watch For in August: feat. a 1920s-set Mexican fairy tale, a dark space opera, and R. F. Kuang’s sequel to The Poppy War • Alison Fraser talks tarot decks, poet-librarians, and Sylvia Beach the visionary archivist • The Cuban Comedy author Pablo Medina recommends five essential Cuban novels, from Alejo Carpentier’s The Kingdom of This World to Wendy Guerra’s Everyone Leaves • A new novel from Richard Russo, a history of the most misunderstood punctuation mark, and a memoir by Ben Folds all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week

New on CrimeReads:

CrimeReads has your guide to all the best crime and mystery shows streaming this month • Tom Chatfield on the past, present, and future of the technothriller • A beginner’s guide to the classics of South Korean film noir • Patrick Coleman on the surprising affinities between noir and evangelicalism • S Kalisha Buckhanon on growing up amidst an epidemic of missing black women • Chandler Baker takes us through 6 of the most gripping workplace thrillers • Lisa Levy traces the evolution of the true crime memoir • Paul French takes a look at the long history of crime novels set in Buenos Aires • July’s most visually stunning (re: creepiest) crime and mystery book covers• Stephen Hunter gives us six pointers on how to write realistic gunfights