Lit Hub Weekly: May 13 - 17, 2019

• “Could it be that masculinity itself is a violent ideology?” Lacy Johnson on Rachel Louise Snyder and the names we give to violence. | Lit Hub
• On discovering an iconic literary character was inspired by your grandfather. (Catch-22‘s Yossarian really did live.) | Lit Hub
• “In the whole wide world, there are subjects beyond power and other people besides the right men.” Caroline Fraser on Robert Caro, great men, and the problem of powerful women in biography. | Lit Hub
• “It’s learning how to switch off that critical voice long enough to give yourself the time to play, to experiment, that I think is the key to making good work.” Jon Gray on designing the book covers for Sally Rooney, Zadie Smith, J.D. Salinger, and other greats. | It’s Nice That
• “Although playful, Bullshitters are fundamentally earnest.  I think of them as old epic poets, writers who sum up their culture in voices.” In praise of literary bullshitting, from Herman Melville to William Gaddis to Gayl Jones. | Full Stop
• “It’s hard to sell a utopian project when the first example that springs to everyone’s mind is Stalin’s Soviet Union”: Sandra Newman on the gradual poisoning of literary utopias. | The Guardian
• “[Q:] What is the biggest impediment to your writing life? [A:] Health insurance.” Xuan Juliana Wang (candidly) answers ten questions. | Poets & Writers
• “This one woman came in, dressed kind of cool, and she was like, ‘Okay, my therapist told me I have to read something that makes me look dumb when I pull it out.’ Obviously she was high-strung.” NYC booksellers on Sally Rooney’s novels and the people who buy them. | Interview
• According to a new biography, Susan Sontag probably wrote the book that launched her ex-husband’s career. | The Guardian
• “I had two days to decide what to tell my doctor about whether I wanted to carry a child.” Nicole Dennis-Benn on pregnancy, and motherhood. | The New York Times
• Nine books that get at the “complexity, trauma, and triumph” of trying to conceive in the face of infertility. | BuzzFeed
• A former director of Stanford University Press explains the origins of the publishing house’s funding crisis—suggesting a struggle between humanists and university administration that goes back 30 years. | The Chronicle of Higher Education
• “I feel like I’m the great American crime writer. You can make that case.” Read a profile of James Ellroy, “the Demon Dog of American fiction.” | 1843
• On the “pernicious, scapegoating effect” of J.D. Vance’s vision of Appalachia—and the many other voices that should be championed instead. | The Baffler
• “Belinda Blinked is writing so bad that it transcends mere constructs of quality and becomes its own absurdist feat of virtuosity.” On My Dad Wrote a Porno and the joy of reading really, really bad sex scenes in literature. | The Atlantic
• “On August 27, Hemingway mailed La Cossitt the most remarkable document he ever sent to Collier’s: his expense account.” The story of Hemingway’s $187,000 magazine expenses claim. | CJR
• Hey guys: turns out growing up in a house full of books makes you smarter—even if you don’t read them. | Scientific American

Also on Lit Hub:

The winners of the 100th annual O. Henry Prize! • The time Samuel Johnson met James Boswell (in a bookstore, naturally) • Some writing advice from Guy Gavriel Kay: whatever you do, don’t take any writing advice • How we find—and lose—women writers • 35 one-star reviews of Mrs. Dalloway from the intrepid literary dissenters of Amazon • On book dedications • Gabriel García Márquez on life in 1950s Paris • Maddie Crum on the rise of self-help books that encourage not much of anything • Jessica Francis Kane on the problem of too much metaphor • Why it’s so hard to write music into fiction • A brief history of queer language before queer identity • Eve Ensler imagines an apology from her abusive father • How Winona Ryder took Susanna Kaysen’s memoir from page to screen • An accounting of which writers have won the most major awards • On translating Mario Levrero, the Kafka of Uruguay • Bruce Smith on poetry in prison and the poetic task of demystification • Inside San Francisco’s plague-ravaged Chinatown, c. 1900 • Pibulsak Lakonpol’s dispatch from a refugee’s no man’s land at the Thai-Burmese border • An oral history of Joy Division • Jonathan Jones on British painting in the 1970s • On Flannery O’Connor’s two deepest loves: mayonnaise and her mother

Best of Book Marks:

Mythic monsters, prison riots, uncanny worlds, and more of the Book Reviews You Need to Read This Week • This week in Shhh…Secrets of the Librarians: OlaRonke Akinmowo on Octavia Butler, Audre Lorde, and the Free Black Women’s Library • Grief is the Thing With Feathers and Lanny author Max Porter recommends five books about being a tree • Bradley sides talks about the brilliance of Toni Morrison and Karen Russell • David McCullough’s The Pioneers: vibrant and compelling OR told with a narrow perspective? • New titles from Karen Russell, Max Porter, and Kathleen Alcott all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week

New on CrimeReads:

The Great CrimeReads summer preview is here! Rounding up 100+ of the summer’s best and hottest crime titles • Lilly Dancyger on grief, trauma, and what it’s like to watch true crime as the relative of a murder victim • A look at 20 of the best speeches in crime cinema  • Congrats to the Anthony Award nominees • Nathan Ward on the legendary gangs, outlaws, and cowboy detectives that made the Western the earliest “true crime” sensation •  7 new international crime novels perfect for the armchair traveler • Michael Gonzales on Jim Steranko, the “Jimi Hendrix of comics” • Tobias Carroll on the enduring power of Oakley Hall’s western noirs • Michael Koryta on the art of claustrophobic noir • Wendy Walker asks crime writers to pick the most memorable bad dates in literature • Sean Carswell on the misogynist history of deadly women in noir