Lit Hub Weekly: March 6–10, 2023

TODAY: In 1744, English auction house Sotheby’s holds its first ever auction (of books) in London. (Pictured above is a 1888 Sotheby’s book auction.)  

• Geoffrey D. Morrison on the mundane letters of John Keats. | Lit Hub Criticism
• Jenny Jackson, longtime editor turned debut author, describes the growing pains of switching roles. | Lit Hub Craft
• “This is the point in the movie where you start to worry about Cary’s personal hygiene. Start to ITCH.” Todd McEwan sings the ballad of Cary Grant’s suit in North by Northwest. | Lit Hub Film & TV
• For your Sunday viewing, here’s your Literary Guide to the 2023 Academy Awards. | Lit Hub Film
• “Is it ridiculous that what I remember most about Skye is wandering the grocery store with my own mother?” Patricia Lockwood recounts a visit to the lighthouse with Virginia Woolf and her mom. | The Atlantic
• “If the Harlem Renaissance is commonly understood as a period during which Black creatives were in vogue, then we’re in the midst of a new renaissance.” Adam Bradley on the new canon of Black literature. | The New York Times
• GD Dess looks at the tenuous relationship between book blurbs and the work itself. | The Millions
• What your academic publisher wants you to know. | Princeton University Press
• Bookmobiles—always a good thing—are now getting into the delivery and distribution of banned books (also a good thing). | WBUR
• Nothing new: The plight of novelist, academic, and tattoo artist Samuel Steward shows that “cancel culture” was alive and well in the 1930s. | The Conversation
• “Why does a book so concerned with the looming issues of our day, and possessed of such an urgent authorial voice, feel like such a time sink?” Parul Sehgal considers Jenny Odell’s Saving Time. | The New Yorker
• Matthew Zapruder reflects on writing poetry on his (not quiet at all) Royal Quiet Deluxe typewriter. | The Paris Review
• “It is at once comic and tragic, as Borges might have noted, that so much money and attention should be concentrated on so little a thing.” Noam Chomsky on the false promise of ChatGPT. | The New York Times
• Nicole Chung on the family who tried to end racism through adoption: “The reality, of course, is that transracial adoption has no intrinsic power to heal racial prejudice.” | The Atlantic
• “I did feel a lot of uncertainty after winning the prize… I worried that people would not be reliable about telling me if something I wrote was no good.” Ten years later, Eleanor Catton, the youngest person to win the Booker Prize, talks about her new novel. | The OC Register
• Friends who open bookstores together stay together (we hope). | The Guardian
• 10 tips for applying to writing residencies, from an expert. | Electric Lit
• Should you read that divorce novel? We have a quiz. | The Hub

Also on Lit Hub:

If you’re heading to Seattle for AWP, here’s where to eat, drink, and visit, according to local writers • What does it mean to win the Nobel Prize as a woman • Rachel Joyce on how writing about the same characters for over a decade shaped her life • How Superman became “Christ manifest in a cape” • Chris McCormick on creating his own Armenia • Dina Nayeri reflects on the quest to fit in as an immigrant teen • Jac Jemc on finding a story while lost in research • Get to know the five PEN/Faulkner finalists of 2023 • How wave riding is like writing • On the rise and fall (and rise?) of German militarism, from the 17th century to today • Eliane Brum on a more holistic approach to ecology • Kate Brody on disappearing into words—until she needed a new author photo • fri

On The Hub:

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