Lit Hub Weekly: June 18 - 22, 2018

• “This is a good reminder that achieving gender parity is not a one-time goal.” The 2017 VIDA count is here. | VIDA
• On the first World Cup without the “poet laureate of football,” the great Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano. | The Atlantic
• “At 520 pages, you can hollow it out and keep drugs in it and no one will ever find them.” J.W. McCormack on the emptiness at the heart of The President is Missing. | The Baffler
• Let’s stop nailing writers’ shoes to the floor: On the stories we keep asking writers of color to tell—and how authors like Porochista Khakpour, Zadie Smith, and Alexander Chee are telling new ones. | BuzzFeed Reader
• Rafia Zakaria traces “the history of an often vexed but always intriguing literary lineage from the nineteenth century until today,” Pakistani literature in English. | TLS
• “It was only after they won the World Series in 1983. . . that I found the Birds as charismatic and appealing as I found the Coffee Drinkers of my childhood.” Álvaro Enrigue on his evolving relationship with baseball. | ESPN
• In publishing, parties are business: Rumaan Alam provides “a look at the recently concluded party season.” | The New York Times
• “We had no strength left for feelings.” An excerpt from Varlam Shalamov’s Kolyma Stories, based on the 15 years Shalamov spent imprisoned in Soviet gulags. | New York Review of Books
• “Babe, when Satan tempted Adam and Eve, there’s a pretty good reason he didn’t transform into a talking clam.” A short story by (and interview with) Lauren Groff. | Esquire
• It felt a bit like something historic was taking place: Molly Crabapple reports from (and illustrates) a recent town hall meeting for sex workers. | The Paris Review
• “My books are often faulted by bourgeois critics for prejudices that are theirs not mine.” A profile of French wunderkind Édouard Louis, who “uses literature as a weapon.” | The New York Times
• From learning morse code to buying a dog, 9 writers and students share their most dramatic procrastination stories. | The Cut
• “For the most part, these books participate in a myth of history, especially children’s history, as apolitical.” History books about “rebellious women” are commendable—but who, and what, do they leave out? | Slate
• Roxane Gay, Janet Mock, Alexander Chee and other LGBTQ authors recommend some great books to read during pride month. | BuzzFeed
• From Housing Works to Books Through Bars, nine organizations using books to make a difference. | Electric Literature

Also on Lit Hub:

New from Rebecca Solnit: Not caring is a political art form • When the president liked to read: a brief history of Barack Obama’s recommended reading lists (oh look, Reinhold Niebuhr!) • Ahmed Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad tells a new story of the war in Iraq • Rebecca Makkai: as hard as it may be, we have a responsibility to write across difference • Is this the biggest book cover trend of the year? • “You write what you want, the way it has to be.” Real talk from one of our greatest living writers, Anne Carson • “The most famous unknown of the century!” On Djuna Barnes queer, modernist classic, Nightwood • Camille Perri on subverting genre and queering romantic comedy • And while we’re looking back: on Orwell, Metropolis, and the “future shock” of David Bowie’s Diamond Dogs • For the first time online in full, read Roxane Gay’s short story “Sweet on the Tongue,”from her new collection, Ayiti • “So when does my mythic writer’s life begin?” Dana Schwartz thought that publishing a book would change everything for her… Reader, it didn’t • Why do some people feel compelled to cheat, connive and swindle? (And why do we love reading about it?) • Dear Book Therapist: How do I survive my C- marriage? • For novelist Richard Flanagan, the last subversive, truly private act might be reading a book • Kristen Arnett: librarians will guard your personal data fiercely (and they might even look the other way about the porn you watched that one time “by accident.”) • I hate your asterisks, and your dinkus, too: Brandon Taylor is fed up • Caoilinn Hughes kindly asks that you take your loud chewing elsewhere: on being a writer highly sensitive to sound • “I had to live in the shadows while contributing to the welfare of this nation.” José Angel Maldonado on living the undocumented life, and the need for action • It’s been a tough week. Here are 12 writers for whom every days is “take your dog to work day”

Best of Book Marks:

From a Pulitzer Prize-winning comic novel to a lesbian pulp noir, Lambda Literary recommends 7 contemporary classics of LGBTQ literature • Jane Ciabattari spoke to Murder on the Left Bank author Cara Black about five books that reveal Paris • This week in Secrets of the Book Critics: Chicago Review of Books editor Adam Morgan on Penelope Fitzgerald, Eve Ewing, and Chicago critics • Colm Tóibín on Tommy Orange’s There There, Edmund White on Édouard Louis’ History of Violence, and more Book Reviews You Need to Read This Week • New titles from Tim Winton, Rebecca Makkai, Penelope Lively, and more all feature among our Best Reviewed Books of the Week

New on CrimeReads:

The 72 most-anticipated crime, mystery, and thriller reads to last you all through the summer •  Sarah J. Harris rounds up the most visually striking new crime novels, from the Australian outback, to the bright lights of the circus • Crime novels make the best travel guides: Jordan Foster recommends 5 international crime novels for the armchair traveler • J. G. Hetherton recommends 11 reporter mysteries starring investigative journalists, from Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects, to Laura Lippman’s Baltimore Blues • Edgar Cantero on teaching children to love mystery, one comic at a time, and learning to love noir through parody • Martin Walker on gourmand detectives and crime fiction’s best and worst meals,from Mme Maigret’s coq au vin to Philip Marlowe’s BBQ • Carsten Stroud looks at 7 classic thrillers that explore the strange, the unexplained, and the supernatural • Caroline Kepnes on Providence, social media, and monsters among us •  Lisa Levy guides us through New York’s spy museum • Donald S. Murray digs deep into the history of peat bogs, final resting place of the criminalized • “There’s something wrong, on a visceral level, about the very idea of children murderers.” Nina Laurin on the most unsettling mystery of all•  Eleanor Herman investigates the poisoning of a royal mistress, 500 years ago • Raymond Villareal on writing a vampire novel as a legal thriller