Lit Hub Weekly: March 16 - 20, 2020

• THESE TIMES: Lit Hub editor Jonny Diamond on literary community in a time of global pandemic • Ysabelle Cheung on trying to write in Hong Kong during the rise of the novel coronavirus • Italian editor Sara Reggiani on life in lock-down • How to support your local bookstores during the coronavirus pandemic • What China’s literary community is reading during the pandemic • The first lines of 10 classic novels rewritten for social distancing (and by popular demand: the last lines of 10 classic novels rewritten for social distancing) • Igiaba Scego writes from Rome: “Dear Americans, please stay inside” • Gerald Posner on the near-impossibility of planning for a viral pandemic • How to support your local bookstores • Italy’s answer to coronavirus is a classic published almost 200 years ago • Stephen Sparks on bookselling at the end of the world • Meet THE VIRTUAL BOOK CHANNEL, our attempt to connect writers with readers (and each other) in these isolating time • You told us your favorite book, now we’re sharing 50 custom book recommendations for 50 readers (and everyone else!), from us to you. | Lit Hub Coronavirus Coverage
• Alexander Chee on Paul Lisicky’s Provincetown memoir, Robert McCrum on Shakespeare in a divided America, and more of the Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks
• Stephen Farber and Michael McClellan take you to the famously contentious set of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?. | CrimeReads
• “Reading is one of Witherspoon’s superpowers.” Ann Patchett profiles Reese Witherspoon. | Vanity Fair
• “Hamilton led readers on a journey that often-times challenged them to tap into to the furthest corners of their imagination.” Reflections on the life of Virginia Hamilton. | Vibe
• “Think Dickinson’s poems are elliptical, or disjointed? The times themselves were out of joint.” How Emily Dickinson wrestled with Darwinism. | JSTOR
• What can “pandemic literature” teach us about racism, xenophobia, and ableism? | The Conversation
• A fun fact for Women’s History Month: according to The NPD Group, female authors accounted for a significant majority of the top 100 literary fiction sales in 2019. | Yahoo Finance
• On coronavirus, quarantine, and the literature of isolation. | The Paris Review
• If it makes you feel any better, David Chang hasn’t finished Infinite Jest, either. | The New York Times
• “The impulse was similar to the one I have after finishing a textually dense but plot-driven novel: now that I knew how it all turned out, I wanted to go back to pick up the dropped clues I’d missed the first time around.” Miranda Popkey, Jessica apologist, on the unique experience of watching Love is Blind. | The New Yorker
• What are authors comfort reading these days? Celeste Ng, Elizabeth Gilbert, Ann Patchett, and more share their picks. | The New York Times
• How did Hilary Mantel’s conclusion to the Cromwell saga, The Mirror and the Light, become “the most significant publishing event of 2020”? | New Statesman
• “We’re trying to think about the ways we can still be an inspiring space without the physical space.” Here’s how indie bookstores are handling coronavirus-related closures. | Vulture
• “Yes, this is all temporary and doomed, but isn’t it great anyways?” A doctor reflects on the lessons of Philip Roth’s Nemesis—and the value of “the illogical practice of reading fiction”—in the time of COVID-19. | Vox Populi
• “As the global stock markets falter under the coronavirus’s effects, and, in particular, as the American Century seems to approach its decline, Ma’s novel is a bracing tonic.” What we can learn from Ling Ma’s Severance right now. | The Ringer
• 35 black artists, including authors like Ta-Nehisi Coates, Jesmyn Ward, and Margo Jefferson, reflect on some of the 21st-century artwork that has inspired them.  | The New York Times
• Eight writers witness the coronavirus pandemic from around the world. | New York Review of Books

Also on Lit Hub:

The unlikely story of how America’s oldest bookstore has survived since 1745 • How J.R.R. Tolkien blocked fanboy W.H. Auden from writing a book about him • Adrienne Raphel explores the poet’s love of crosswords • John Loughery on the life and legacy of Dorothy Day • Jane Healey on the secret corridors and impossible floorplans of gothic manors • Monique Truong explores what it means when we call women “sweet” • Gerald Posner: six lessons from decades of investigative reporting • On the unexpectedly subversive world of romance novels • Sue William Silverman on dealing with hypochondria • What can six-toed cats teach us about genetic development? • Sure, plot is good, but have you tried talking about story shape? •TaraShea Nesbit reckons with the Midwest and home • Why do doctors discredit women’s pain? • Alex Halberstadt on his grandmother’s life in the Soviet Union, midcentury • Have you ever noticed that Jane Austen’s characters tend to blur together? • An environmentally ethical argument for hating birds • Dinah Lenney on the metaphorical power of a good cup of coffee • The stories behind the (frankly adorable) names famous writers gave their pets • Matthew Norman recommends some literary comic relief • Barry Sonnenfeld on making Blood Simple with the Coen Brothers • Paul Lisicky on his Provincetown • The life and times of Lucy Schell, the heiress who dominated early motorsports • A people’s history of the poetry workshop • Scenes from Harry Dodge’s San Francisco • What Ray Bradbury understood about the narrative power of tattoos

Best of Book Marks:

Sarah Neilson recommends 10 New Books About Womxn’s History for Womxn’s History Month • Manifesta authors Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards talk Jane Eyre, Toni Morrison, bell hooks, and more • Deceit and Other Possibilities author Vanessa Hua recommends five books that tell the immigrant story, from The Buddha in the Attic to Severance • A tale of murder on the Mayflower, Paul Lisicky’s Provincetown memoir, and a multigenerational Vietnamese saga all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week

New on CrimeReads:

5 international crime novels to read this month • In times of isolation and anxiety, many of us turn to crime novels • 9 debut crime and mystery novels to check out in March • Mat Osman recommends 6 great novels about crime that aren’t quite crime books • Harlan Coben believes Planet of the Apes is the best twist ending in history • Rebecca Rego Barry on Carolyn Wells, a prolific mystery author and rare books collector • Suzanne Redfearn celebrates the role of architecture in 6 novels • Stephanie Wrobel teaches us how to craft perfect twist endings • Why Robert Stone went to Saigon—and came back with Dog Soldiers • Chris Bohjalian on emergency room doctors, the detectives of the medical world