Lit Hub Weekly: March 2 - 6, 2020

• How J. Edgar Hoover used the power of libraries for (gasp!) evil. | Lit Hub History
• “Mechanical travel blunts our sense of the world.” On the reverie and detachment of the American road trip. | Lit Hub Travel
• On the magic sentences of Lauren Groff, creating action without verbs. | Lit Hub Criticism
• Parul Sehgal on Hilary Mantel, Jonathan Dee on James McBride, and more of the Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks
• Olivia Rutigliano counts down the best crime-solving writers in fiction, from Jughead Jones to Jessica Fletcher. | CrimeReads
• The London Book Fair, one of the world’s largest, has been canceled amid growing concerns over the coronavirus. | The Guardian
• Under James Daunt’s management, perennially embattled bookstore Barnes & Noble is pivoting to… books. | Bloomberg Businessweek
• Ronan Farrow responds to the news that Woody Allen will publish a memoir: “Hachette’s complicity in this should be called out for what it is and they should have to answer for it.” | Los Angeles Times
• How do we know that people actually memorized epic poems like The Iliad and The Odyssey? | JSTOR
• “Maybe once I figure out what poetry really is, I’ll stop.” Jeffrey Yang on writing and asking questions. | The Paris Review
• “We hope you are only here for two weeks.” Lavender Au reports on her time in Covid-19 quarantine. | New York Review of Books
• “The real subject is not her daughter, or her experience of parenthood, or even a tragic death. The real subject, as is always the case with Didion, is her alienation from these things.” On Joan Didion and moving to Los Angeles. | VQR
• “In its semantic density, great poetry gives you the sense you’ve skipped over and missed some available shade of meaning.” Elisa Gabbert on Alice Notley and the power of poetic nonsense. | The New York Times
• “The very gesture of resisting or claiming the notion of Jewish literature points to broader questions in Jewish thought.” Clémence Boulouque on the label of “Jewish writer.” | Public Books
• A bill introduced in Missouri would subject librarians to misdemeanor charges and a possible jail sentence for buying or lending books deemed “inappropriate” for children. | The Hour
• “I don’t believe Dorothea Lange was lying, I just think she had one story mixed up with another.” The story behind Lange’s most famous photo. | Los Angeles Review of Books
• “It’s one thing to read Ellmann’s 1,030-page novel; it’s another to read it aloud.” On recording (and listening to) the 45-hour audiobook edition of Ducks, Newburyport. | The Guardian
• “I don’t think about criticism in terms of authority. I think about it in terms of charm and persuasion, which anybody can possess.” How Parul Seghal gets it all done. | The Cut
• The answer to that great piece of literary trivia: Why do hardcover books come out before the paperbacks? | Mental Floss
• Dean Koontz did not predict the spread of Covid-19. Why did the conspiracy theory take hold, and what does that tell us about the way we tell stories about disease? | The Guardian

Also on Lit Hub:

Lorrie Moore talks “getting morning coffee on the page,” the voiceover on Frontline, and ignoring writer’s block • The best one-star Amazon reviews of On the Road • Maira Kalman on illustrating the domestic bliss of Alice B. Toklas and Gertrude Stein • On the dangerous tricksters of 4chan and the evolution of online toxicity • Meditations from the great Robert Stone • Sarah Blackwood on the lasting insights of Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence • Deb Olin Unferth didn’t expect to be writing from the point of view of a chicken—but here we are • Hilary Leichter on the derangements of late capitalism • On Frida Kahlo as photographic subject • Jessi Jezewska Stevens on the hidden power of the passive protagonist • David Lerner Schwartz on Choose Your Own Adventure and literary fiction • Nick Ripatrazone on the faith of Toni Morrison • Intan Paramaditha on the challenge of telling honest stories about the places we go • Tim Bakken on the self-deluded hubris at the heart of the American military •  Dylan Byron on the self-discovery of early literary love, Lord Alfred Douglas • A mother’s survivor’s guilt in the wake of Sandy Hook • John Feinstein searches for the heart of college basketball in the midst of March Madness • What’s the point of plants that make us feel high? • Writing and confronting terror in the form of a color • 10 books you should read in March • Hope Jahren on how high-fructose corn syrup became an American staple • David Nott on working to save lives in Aleppo’s secret hospitals during the Syrian Civil War • Robin D.G. Kelley on the roots of anti-racist, anti-fascist resistance in the US • Alison Stine on the problem of money and access at AWP

Best of Book Marks:

New on CrimeReads:

Robert Stone goes on the lam with Ken Kesey • Caitlin Mullen on the perpetual reinvention of Atlantic City  • “She is not a real person. She is a label.” Lizzy Steiner on cheerleaders, true crime, and the American Dream • 12 crime and mystery novels you should read this March • “Conquered and reconquered, colonized and commodified, Santa Fe understands…the intimacy of violence.” • How Arthur Conan Doyle helped a dying friend finish his mystery novel • Douglas Skelton wonders at the sublime inspiration of Scotland’s many remote islands • David Goodis’ bleak, beautiful vision of humanity • Lori Rader-Day and Deborah Halber discuss the early days of online sleuthing • “If the conflict in a story rises to the level of physical violence, writers have a responsibility to get it right”