Lit Hub Weekly: June 25 - 29, 2018

• Former poet laureate Donald Hall has died at 89. Ann Patchett remembers him as her generous pen pal. | NPR, Literary Hub
• “The author is, at the very least, genius-adjacent.” On Helen DeWitt and our endless search for genius. | Public Books
• From the novels of Jesmyn Ward and James Hanaham to Childish Gambino’s “This is America,” mapping the black Gothic revival. | Los Angeles Review of Books
• “Whither their cruelty, their decadence, their way of life?” What the Patrick Melrose novels reveal about the decline of the British aristocracy. | The New Yorker
• “My notes from the books are filled with comments like ‘so didactic’ and, more to the point, ‘why didn’t somebody cut this?’” Alice Bolin on trying to understand her father through his favorite bad (and kind of misogynist) mystery novels. | Longreads
• Nearly 25 former Obama staffers have written books about their experience working for him—”everyone who ever spent even a few minutes with Mr. Obama, it seems.” | The New York Times
• Can audiobooks be better than their original written versions? Maris Kreizman says yes, and has 14 examples to prove it. | BuzzFeed
• Jonathan Franzen still loves birds, has road rage, has a personal trainer, is fine. | The New York Times
• “It wasn’t so much a marriage of true minds as a fusion of two libraries.” Olivia Laing on finding love later in life with the poet Ian Patterson after the death of Patterson’s wife, Jenny Diski. | The Sunday Times
• Don’t understand season 2 of Westworld? Neither do we! But maybe a little Shakespeare will help. | The New Republic
• “I just feel like I didn’t even write this book. . . I guess whatever that book is, it just has nothing to do with me anymore, if it ever did.” Looking back at Girl, Interrupted, 25 years later. | The Paris Review
• “There would be a Pulitzer Prize for blogging, if men did it more.” Lydia Kiesling profiles the Mormon mommy blogger formerly known as Nat the Fat Rat. | The Cut
• Legendary fantasy and science fiction writer Harlan Ellison has died at 84. | Vulture
• Let’s be very angry: Gillian Flynn and Megan Abbott in conversation. | Vanity Fair
• “She took her revenge in print. She kept the score, and all her paperwork to prove it.” Margaret Drabble on Muriel Spark at 100. | The Times Literary Supplement

Also on Lit Hub:

The Man Booker by the numbers: How many story collections have made the short list? Who’s won it most? • Rick Bass on the time he headed one valley over to cook dinner for his neighbor, Denis Johnson • Likability in fiction isn’t the same as empathy—and sometimes, it prevents it • How do we get the USA back to the World Cup? Bruce Arena on the latest setback for American soccer • How to read like your favorite author: see which books famous authors read and recommend the most • Jordy Rosenberg on the 10 trans books he loves • Is insomnia a source of suffering or creativity? Exploring the sleepless lives of writers • Megan Abbott on the difference between hardboiled and noir • Behind the scenes with Ben Rhodes the day Osama Bin Laden was killed • Laszlo Krasznahorkai: We didn’t ask, but he recommended 8 books anyway • “I remember toddling into my mother’s room, where she was taking a bath in the late afternoon. I announced, ‘I’m free. I can read.’” Edmund White on a life lived in books • On the (very high) highs and (deep down) lows of opening an independent bookstore in 2018 • From Twin Peaks to My Favorite Murder, how our obsession with dead girl stories hurts women • Miranda Popkey wonders why we’re so perennially fascinated by that master of self-erasure, Véra Nabokov • “The human soup is a teeming broth, which must mean I have a high threshold for disgust, combined with a weakness for corporeal pleasure.” Maureen Stanton’s brief history of public bathing • You’ve been mispronouncing Dr. Seuss your whole life. Howard Allen Frances O’Brien, James Horowitz, Chloe Ardelia Wofford, and other writers who went with a pen name • Why James Baldwin traveled to the American south, and what it meant to him • What happens to whales when they die? • Comedian Hari Kondabolu: Racism was always there in New York, but 9/11 cracked it wide open • From queering the romantic comedy to living with the ghost of Gabriel García Márquez, our favorite stories of the month at Lit Hub 

Best of Book Marks:

With the summer now firmly upon us, we took a look back at the Best Reviewed Books of 2018 (so far) • Carter Beats the Devil and I Will Be Complete author Glen David Gold spoke to Jane Ciabattari about five memoirs that “tear it up and tear it down” • This week in Secrets of the Book Critics: Tobias Carroll on Geek Love, Goodreads, and the books that haunt him • Michael Cunningham on Rebecca Makkai’s chronicle of the AIDS epidemic, Simon Callow on Shakespeare’s tyrants, and more Book Reviews You Need to Read This Week • David Lynch, demi-gods, dead girls, and more all feature among our Best Reviewed Books of the Week

New on CrimeReads:

From David Liss, to Lyndsay Faye, to Caleb Carr, Paddy Hirsch recommends 10 historical mysteries that explore empire and its discontents • From Cold War Berlin to present-day South Texas, 20 crime novels set in disputed territories, divided cities, and liminal spaces of all kinds • Paul French looks at crime writing in England’s “second city” of Manchester • “Country can shine a light into the blackest parts of our lives and it can make you care.” A playlist of country songs as bleak and beautiful as noir, selected by Mark Billingham • Matthew Turbeville recommends 25 crime books, films, and tv episodes featuring queer characters, for anyone who’s looked to crime fiction for comfort, strength, or escape • 9 sophomore mysteries to read this summer, because why should the debuts get all the attention? • Who are the women of true crime documentary phenomenon The Staircase? After 13 episodes, we’re still not sure (and that’s a problem) • Margalit Fox on how Arthur Conan Doyle used Holmesian logic to exonerate a wrongfully convicted man, and why the story for so long fell by the wayside • Gregory Rossi on podcasts, documentaries, and the evolution of true crime storytelling • Writer and activist Ana Simo reflects on Kafka’s Amerika as queer crime novel and interrogation of criminality • Amanda Robson on sex, violence, and crime fiction