Lit Hub Weekly: June 12-16, 2023

• “When we write ‘I’ in the personal essay it is a philosophical act as much as it is a creative one.” Sarah Viren on essayistic visions of the self. | Lit Hub Criticism

• On the mental health fallout from the horror of WWI. | Lit Hub History

• While visiting Italy’s vanishing towns, Dominic Smith muses on abandonment both physical and emotional. | Lit Hub Memoir

• Omar El Akkad chronicles a life of swimming, and the way water “pulls the punctuation out of the body’s sentences.” | Lit Hub Nature

• Richard Ford’s Be Mine, Sarah Viren’s To Name the Bigger Lie, and Tania James’s Loot all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week. | Book Marks

• David Remnick remembers legendary editor Robert Gottlieb, who died this week at age 92. | The New Yorker

• Here’s your cheat-sheet for the writing of the late, great Cormac McCarthy. | The Washington Post

• “Five people turned up to listen to me. None of them had read my books, and it was clear that none of them had the slightest intention of doing so.” John Banville on the casual ignominy of the book tour. | Esquire

• “The more ‘queer’ has drifted away from its referents, the more it has become an essentializing category.” Ben Miller considers queer history. | The Baffler

• Raise a Norton “cranthology” to W.W. Norton’s 100th birthday. | The New York Times

• Anne Thériault on Sylvia Plath and journaling for mental health. | The Walrus

• “Should we not ask ourselves if the presence of so many poems changes not only the way in which the Bible speaks to us, but also the kind of message, announcement, or call that it conveys?” Michael Edwards considers the poetry of the Bible. | The Paris Review

• Elizabeth Gilbert has pulled her forthcoming novel from the publishing schedule after Ukrainian reviewers on Goodreads expressed “anger, sorrow, disappointment, and pain” about the book’s Russian setting. | The Hub

• “I felt like I was in [a show] like The Newsroom.” On the race to turn the January 6th report into an audiobook… in 26 hours. | LA Times

• Tired: Girlbossing. Wired: Critterposting, the Beatrix Potter-inspired anti-hustle movement. | Vox

• Ryan Skinnell on the destructive myth of the universal genius. | JSTOR Daily

• “Parents who want to protect their children, by not making them feel guilty because great grandpa was a Klansman aren’t protecting their kids from anything.” Art Spiegelman on fascism and book bans. | PEN America

• How Martin Amis created an “aesthetic blueprint for Britpop.” | Hot Press

• Nadira Goffe talks to Ali Hazelwood about her best-selling STEM romance novels. | Slate

• “For Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, style was secondary to his politics. His work attacked western religion and education, language and the betrayal of Kenya by the post-independence leadership.” Carey Baraka profiles a giant of African literature. | The Guardian

Also on Lit Hub:

Remembering Cormac McCarthy, who died this week at 89 • Ann Beattie close-reads Frederick Barthelme • Ann Napolitano on reaching for the connection of Little Women • Manuel Betancourt on navigating queerness in English and Spanish • How Raymond Carver’s short story “Cathedral” speaks to bioethics in the medical community • Why Harry Potter’s Hedwig would make a terrible pet • Greg Marshall considers his memoir-worthy leg • Amy Benson wrestles with the devastating consequences of air travel • Finn Murphy on chasing his Big American Dream: growing hemp • Alaya Dawn Johnson on responding to trauma by writing science fiction • On the joy of literary acceptance—and the freedom of rejection • Lessons in interviewing musicians from Chris Payne • Deborah Willis on the existential contradictions of writing fiction on an imperiled planet • Aisha Harris reflects on the “black friend” trope, then and now • Why we need stories that center female friendships • On the two-sided nature of writing about war • Sayantani DasGupta on diverse retellings of Regency tales