Lit Hub Weekly: July 3-7, 2023

TODAY: In 1923, Nella Larsen graduates from the NYPL’s Library School and becomes the first professionally trained Black librarian.   

• How Franz Kafka achieved cult status in Cold War America: Brian K. Goodman traces the origins of the term “Kafkaesque.” | Lit Hub Criticism

• “I am almost always the main character in my stories of my parents’ music.” Keziah Weir reflects on finding her literary voice through her parents’ musical talent. | Lit Hub Music

• Caitlin Shetterly on the honest humility of going gray. | Lit Hub Memoir

• “We were a bit broken up over the death of our black Persian cat. When I say a bit broken up I am being conventional. For us it was tragedy.” How famous writers mourned the death of their beloved pets. | Lit Hub Pets

• Patrick DeWitt’s The Libraianist, Charlotte Mendelson’s The Exhibitionist, and Beth Nguyen’s Owner of a Lonely Heart all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week. | Book Marks

• July’s best new crime novels, mysteries, and thrillers. | CrimeReads

• Patricia Lockwood on the life and legacy of David Foster Wallace. | London Review of Books

• From the Labor Bund to the Lesbian Bar, Molly Crabapple profiles the legendary poet Irena Klepfisz. | Lux

• Oh dear: TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, is launching a publishing company. | The New York Times

• The New Yorker fiction issue features short fiction from Jhumpa Lahiri, Camille Bordas, and Hiromi Kawakami, a profile of Samuel R. Delany by Julian Lucas, and an essay from Zadie Smith. | The New Yorker

• “We can and should mock Hawley, but we’re taking a risk if we don’t read between the lines.” Ginny Hogan reads Manhood. | The Nation

• Test your knowledge of the summer bestsellers of yore. | The Washington Post

• “This is what made me. Watching/ their descendants drop it lower than their expectations. They could never/ sit in our situations which is why they can’t get up & break it down like we do/” A poem by Tayi Tibble. | The New Yorker

• Remembering the great modern poet H.D. | JSTOR Daily

• “Each time I return to Mexico I find myself marveling at how many elements of daily life there could, in some way, be described as Baroque: our sunsets, our cuisine, our pollution, our corruption.” Chloe Ardijis on Mexican Baroque. | The Paris Review

• Jack Hanson considers Mario Vargas Llosa’s rejection of the left. | The Nation

• Are blockbuster sports books—think Moneyball or Playing for Keeps—a thing of the past? | Esquire

• “My seeds from the Cherokee Nation seed bank arrived a few months after the funeral.” Autumn Fourkiller chronicles her attempts to grow tobacco after returning to her late father’s home on the reservation. | Forge Project

• “Quick, write something not about the baby. Not about the baby. Not about the baby or his new feeding schedule. Or his astonishing eyes. Or how you see his face in your face now.” Brittany Hailer shares a monologue of early motherhood. | Short Reads

• In Milwaukee, a celebration of the typewriter’s long local history. | Atlas Obscura

• Ukraine and the meaning of home: Read an essay by Victoria Amelina, the acclaimed writer killed by a Russian missile strike. | The Guardian

Also on Lit Hub:

Here are the 166 titles we’ll be reading in the second half of the year • Kate Zambreno on getting the writing done (and more) • How one American town went to war over desegregation • July’s best sci-fi and fantasy books • Marsha Gordon on Ursula Parrott’s ambitious women • Arianna Reiche recommends her favorite works of metafiction • Laura Kay on writing queer romance • Five short story collections to have you reading like a writer • What Mai Nguyen is reading now and next • Must-read poetry in July • On the egregiously overlooked artist Louise Nevelson • Considering the authenticity of small-town living • Guy Davenport on Ronald Johnson’s transcendentalist poetry • How nonfiction writing and documentary filmmaking curate the truth 

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