Lit Hub Weekly: March 9 - 13, 2020

• Yan Lianke, in a letter to his students: “I hope that each of you, and all of us who’ve experienced the catastrophic COVID-19 will become people who remember.” | Lit Hub
• Terminal pain and the origins of the end-of-life movement: Gerald Posner on Cicely Saunders, the UK nurse-turned-physician who fought for the rights of the dying. | Lit Hub History
• Jim Lewis on Robert Frank’s San Francisco, the imperfect picture that transformed 20th century photography. | Lit Hub Art
• Daniel Mendelsohn on Hilary Mantel’s The Mirror & the Light, Katy Waldman on Rebecca Solnit’s Recollections of My Nonexistence, and more of the Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks
• Katie Orphan breaks down the essential crime novels of Los Angeles, from Mildred Pierce to Devil in a Blue Dress and beyond. | CrimeReads
• From real-life activists to fictional heroes, these books tell the stories of women fighting climate change. | Yale Climate Connections
• “Sometimes when I’m writing I’ll get the panicked sense that I gave up time with my son just to delete three paragraphs.” Karen Russell on writing, money, and motherhood. | Wealthsimple
• Was William Styron, author of The Confessions of Nat Turner, the first mainstream author to be accused of cultural appropriation? His daughter, Alexandra, raises the question. | The Atlantic
• “What is it exactly that makes him so difficult to translate, and why do so many people try?” On the challenges of adapting Stephen King. | The Washington Post
• Cool, bored, passive, estranged: Jess Bergman on the affected young women of our new “literature of relentless detachment.” | The Baffler
• “The plague was Shakespeare’s secret weapon. He didn’t ignore it. He took advantage of it.” So… there’s that! | Slate
• American Dirt wasn’t the first time Oprah’s Book Club has entered the fray of publishing-related controversy. | Los Angeles Times
• “No one should feel sorry for me or any other writer in this position. But I do kind of envy the writers who don’t have this discourse around their book.” Read a profile of Kate Elizabeth Russell. | Buzzfeed News
• Meet the doctors submitting poems to medical journals as a way of exploring “the fragility, tenacity and universality of the human experience.” | Los Angeles Times
• “She is, essentially, a coddled asshole who is never put in her place except by Mr. Knightley, the man she—spoiler alert, for those who haven’t gotten around to the novel over the past 200 years—eventually marries.” Hillary Kelly on why Emma is still Jane Austen’s “most pleasurable heroine to watch.” | Vulture
• Too much informational noise around you? Bilal Qureshi recommends a few books on minimalism and silence. | The Washington Post
• Does Hachette’s cancellation of Woody Allen’s memoir signal a sea change in the publishing industry? | The Outline
• As coronavirus spreads, some Beijing bookstores have partnered with a food delivery service to get books to readers. | Abacus
• “I’ve had a pit in my stomach for the last week and a half since it became real.” Hear from an indie bookstore owner in Washington state on how coronavirus is impacting business. | Slate
• The publishing industry is feeling the effects of coronavirus in ever-increasing ways. | Publishers Weekly

Also on Lit Hub:

Michelle de Kretser Shirley Hazzard, one of Australia’s great writers • Ann Napolitano wants writers to honor their weird obsessions • Na Zhong on how coronavirus has ground Chinese publishing to a halt—and made existing problems worse • Finding Octavia Butler’s Pasadena • When it comes to historical documents, spotting forgeries is a fraught and risky business • Rebecca Solnit on Harvey Weinstein, storykiller • Liesl Schillinger on what we can still learn (and should probably unlearn) from Albert Camus’s The Plague • Honor Moore on the secrets mothers and daughters keep from one another • Amanda Leduc on the “inaccessible forests” of the literary world • The story of the massive Chicago operation to save 800,000 people from hunger • Eva Meijer on translating animal languages • On the Portuguese city that glorifies an author who hated it • Luis Jaramillo on the weird and wonderful jargon of the high seas • Let us now praise the onion, one of the Holy Trinity of vegetables • Remember when Trump threatened to target Iranian cultural sites? This is what they actually look like • Andreas Liebe Delsett’s dispatches from the insular, independent world of Nordic restaurant kitchens • Jacob Dorman on the creation of an audience for racist stereotypes • Shakespeare and the culture wars: On the movement for color-blind casting • Tove Jansson on five decades of life with Tuulikki Pietilä • Dionne Searcey learns the story of a survivor of Boko Haram captivity • Lessons from the Qur’an as the bombs fell on Tehran • Camilla Cavendish on retirement and the Japanese approach to senior work • Sophisticates, snobs, and scathing reviews in wartime London • Fill the Thomas Cromwell-shaped hole in your heart with these ten great works of historical fiction

Best of Book Marks:

My Dark Vanessa author Kate Elizabeth Russell on Judy Blume, Anne Carson, and Portnoy’s Complaint • Barn 8 author Deb Olin Unferth shares five books popular in the Connally Unit maximum security prison, from The Sellout to Their Eyes Were Watching God • The Art of the Hand-Sell: 14 indie booksellers rave about their favorite reads • My Dark Vanessa, a memoir from Rebecca Solnit, and Deb Olin Unferth’s chicken heist novel all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week.

New on CrimeReads:

Curtis Evans on the poison-pen letter writing phenomenon of the early 20th century • Are all the good plots taken? Tessa Wegert has some pointers for honoring our forebears without copying them  • Jo Jakeman explores the uncanny appeal of the seaside mystery • Crime and the City heads to Saigon, where a rich literary scene awaits  • Rounding up the best historical crime and mystery fiction of 2020 (so far) • Katie Orphan goes searching for James M. Cain’s Los Angeles • Prosecutor Victor Methos loves watching C.S.I. Miami. He also sees the damage it’s doing to our justice system. • Rounding up the month’s best nonfiction and true crime books • Briarpatch may just be the coolest show on TV • Chris McGinley makes the case for Charles Brockden Brown’s 1798 novel Edgar Huntly as America’s first rural noir