Lit Hub Weekly: June 24 - 28, 2024

• Bradford Morrow on coming face to face with Edgar Allan Poe’s Tamerlane, the rarest book in American literature. | Lit Hub History
• “I wanted the guests to see that I had chosen this. I was not some hectored maiden but entirely in control of my destiny.” On reading Jill Ciment’s Consent as a former teenage bride. | Lit Hub Memoir
• Elif Shafak on why George Orwell’s 1984 remains more relevant than ever. | Lit Hub Politics
• Are writers forced to become brands? “Wall-to-wall consumption within a single corporate entity is so ubiquitous today it’s hard to imagine not doing it.” | Lit Hub Criticism
• “It didn’t matter if our coverage was smarter or better written than what was available on the hundreds of other sites running the same thing.” Kevin Nguyen on what Game of Thrones did to media. | The Verge
• An ode to Cricket, the magazine for children with “literary or artistic pretensions.” | The New York Times
• “[It] it ostensibly about isolation but has in fact become part of a larger story of literary collaboration and the boundaries between artists, friends, and their work.” Alice Robb on the unexpected afterlife of Autobiography of a Face. | The New Republic
• How does censorship change language? On TikTok, algospeak, and the price of violating community guidelines. | The New Inquiry
• Tahitian poet Flora Aurima Devatine on poetry and theory, water and language. | Words Without Borders
• Emily Gould looks into the hottest new trend in publishing: Monster smut. | The Cut
• Casey Cep considers two recent books that “wrestle with less familiar aspects of [Harriet] Tubman’s legacy.” | The New Yorker
• Srikanth Reddy considers literary wonder. | The Paris Review
• Elizabeth Fetterolf interviews author and sociologist Allison Pugh about, well, interviewing. | Public Books
• On two Uyghur memoirs, diaspora, and activism: “Whether formally detained or not, Turkic and Muslim people in Xinjiang remain trapped within a mesh of surveillance and threat.” | The Dial
• Sebastián Sanchez talks to Steven Monte about the ambitious work of translating 16th century epic poem Orlando Furioso. | Asymptote
• Ian Bogost laments the decline of the instruction manual. | The Atlantic
• “Our work will not stop until we achieve a books industry free from the profits of fossil fuels and the arms industry.” Tom Jeffreys of Fossil Free Books on the Baillie Gifford boycotts and the necessity of sustainable, ethical sources of arts funding. | The Guardian
• “After an airstrike, you see exactly what you would imagine: the destruction of the human body.” Tobias Kirchwey interviews Dr. Ameera Qudieh, a physician in Gaza. | The Baffler
• A professional storyteller lays out the elements of a great campfire tale. | Atlas Obscura

Also on Lit Hub:

Merle Hoffman recommends readings on reproductive justice • What does game theory have to do with organ donation? • How J. R. R. Tolkien shaped modern fantasy • Héctor Abad remembers Victoria Amelina • Rafaela Bassili on Claire Messud’s melodramas • Caitlin Shetterly on how famous writers conquered writers’ block • The art of imagining in Alan Lightman’s Einstein’s Dreams • Rachel Zimmerman on an invaluable literary friendship cut short by cancer • Tracy O’Neill on searching for her birth mother during a pandemic • How Charles Darwin achieved 19th century rock star status • How reading grief memoirs helped Cody Delistraty process loss • Helen Fielding on the place of the confessional narrative • The catharsis of autofiction during a mental breakdown • Audrea Lim on the fight for equitable land distribution in Minnesota • What shouldn’t you let your cat do? • How Nancy Cunard and a small press poetry contest launched Samuel Beckett’s career • Oren Kroll-Zeldin on Jewish identity, community myths, and unlearning Zionism • Jean-Martin Bauer on the use of technology to resolve global hunger and food insecurity • What Tara M. Stringfellow is reading now and next • Akwaeke Emezi doesn’t outline books • Behind the scenes of My Lady Jane • These are the best book covers of June •  Kristen Arnett answers your awkward questions • Having kids and family life in the 21st century • Kent Wascom recommends Neo-Western reads • Remember when Benjamin Franklin jumped naked into the Thames? • What Julia Phillips learned about writing from fairy tales • In defense of the trauma narrative • Indexing the life of Sylvia Plath • The fight for LGBTQ+ equality within the Boy Scouts of America