Lit Hub Weekly: March 25 - 29, 2019

• Turns out, procrastination isn’t about laziness (though how that information helps you when you’re elbows-deep in avoiding your novel, we couldn’t say). | The New York Times
• “I didn’t always know what we were doing”: On poet Carolyn Forché’s new memoir, What You Have Heard is True, and witnessing political tragedy. | The Atlantic
• Is George Saunders haunted by the ghost of his Catholic upbringing? | First Things
• “I have a more or less irresistible passion for books”: When Vincent van Gogh wasn’t painting, he was known to be a voracious reader, enjoying the work of authors like George Eliot, Tolstoy and Hans Christian Andersen. | The Economist
• “When it comes to beauty, nature gave us a lot but not everything. As for the rest, you can steal it.” Read Namwali Serpell’s ode to her sister. | BuzzFeed News
• “Who’s afraid of Glenda Jackson? Most people, and with some cause.” Parul Sehgal profiles the woman playing King Lear at the Old Vic. | The New York Times Magazine
• “She’s a businesswoman, albeit one with purple nails”: Read a profile of Selwa Anthony, the elusive literary agent who was recently at the losing end of two sensational court cases in Australia. | The Sydney Morning Herald
• Andrew Martin on the enduring cultural relevance of Baltimore, and “the devil’s bargain of a city that operates as a laboratory for bold visions in exchange for social and economic precariousness.” | T Magazine
• We may venerate him as the greatest writer of all time, but there are a lot of things Shakespeare left out of his work. Moms, for instance. | The Mary Sue
• “The boys rooted for Griff, even though he was a miserable bully who jimmied and pried at their weaknesses and made up weaknesses if he couldn’t find any.” Read an excerpt from Colson Whitehead’s next novel, The Nickel Boys. | The New Yorker
• “For years now, Bret Easton Ellis has been accused of being a racist and a misogynist, and I think these things are true; but like most things that are true of Bret Easton Ellis, they are also very boring.” Andrea Long Chu on Ellis, White, and not taking the bait. | Bookforum
• Road trip inspiration: here are the best bookstores in all 50 states. | Mental Floss
• Gabriel Okara, the Nigerian poet and novelist considered by some to be the father of African modernism, has died at 97. | Okay Africa
• “The director turned to another medium, one that would allow him to revisit one particular ‘framework of reality’–his parents’ lives and doomed marriage”: Daniel Mendelsohn on Ingmar Bergman’s three autobiographical novels. | The New York Review of Books
• “The film underscores the idea that erasure may be as significant, if not more so, than the writing itself.” What movies can teach us about writing. | LARB

Also on Lit Hub:

Nathan Englander on writing and worrying • “What if I don’t even like writing. What if my true passion is praise?” On the allure (and trap) of validation • Meet Clare Winger Harris, the reclusive woman who became a pioneer of science fiction • Maddie Crum on narratives of burnout in the gig economy • “Can writing be taught? The answer is obviously yes” • On being black in Appalachia: A response to J.D. Vance • Emily Temple reveals the life-changing magic of 10 Things I Hate About You • A profile of Laila Lalami • Western vs. noir: how two film genres shaped postwar American culture • Meet the host of the podcast for people with no attention span • How the West has drawn a new global map based on fear • How the designer of T Kira Madden’s Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls found the cover’s glitter •  Julie Langsdorf on the illicit, bittersweet pleasure of empty bookshelves • On the daily rituals of Joan Didion, Patti Smith, and more • Kick off your spring book-admiring with some of our favorite covers of March • Amy Hempel on Joy Williams’ ecological call to arms • Clive Thompson on how the algorithm rewards extremism • Astrological book recommendations for April (because literature is never in retrograde) • Pola Oloixarac on the un-Googleable lightness of being • Anatomy of a perfect album: on Joni Mitchell’s Blue • A brief history of the potato • The story of Olive Schreiner, the Charlotte Brontë of South Africa • Was the International Peace Mission Movement a religious cult, a force for civil rights, or both? • How the contemporary cancer memoir is reconfiguring grief • On James Baldwin’s decade in Istanbul • Five reasons a writer should move to London • The Lit Hub staff’s favorite stories of the month • In honor of the 50th birthday of Vonnegut’s classic, here are the best covers from Slaughterhouse-Five from around the world

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